Editor in Chief: Moh. Reza Huwaida Friday, March 29th, 2024

Pakistani authorities work to restore power after blackout

Pakistani authorities work to restore power  after blackout

ISLAMABAD- Authorities have restored electricity supply to parts of several main Pakistani cities and work on power restoration is continuing on Sunday after a major fault at a thermal power plant caused a countrywide blackout, plunging millions into darkness.
Power across the South Asian country of 220 million people was abruptly cut late on Saturday because of a fault at the Guddu thermal power plant, sending the entire country into darkness, Energy Minister Omar Ayub Khan said.
“At 11:41pm [18:41 GMT] the fault occurred at the Guddu power plant, and in one second the [power] frequency which is normally at 49.5 Hertz it dropped [to zero],” Khan told reporters in the capital, Islamabad.
“In technical terms, it is called a cascade [failures being caused], one after another. Power plant safety systems began to shut themselves down.”
Khan said a fault – as yet undiagnosed – at the 1,400MW thermal power plant caused the country’s entire electricity transmission system, which was handling 10,302MW at the time, to shut itself down.
Repair crews are continuing to diagnose the problem and parts of the system have been restored in the north of the country, he said.
“We started [the] Tarbela [hydroelectric power plant] twice – it synced and that allowed electricity to resume to several cities,” he said. (Aljazeera)