Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: A technical fault at the National Transmission and Dispatch Company (NTDC) resulted in suspension of electricity in several major cities of Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa on Wednesday.

A spokesperson of the Power Division said that a technical fault had affected Tarbela, Mangla and Ghazi Barotha power plants. However, the supply was restored later in the day, after around 10 hours in some areas.

The protection system installed in the transmission system for Sindh and Balochistan saved the provinces from the power shut down.

An official in the Power Division was quoted as saying by the Radio Pakistan that the power generation had dropped to 11,800 MW earlier in the day. Later in the day, it was reported at 12,000MW.

The official said that Ghazi Barotha was then synchronised and connected to the national grid, while gradual restoration of individual 132KV grids and 11KV feeders remained in progress.

Power failure was reported from major cities of Punjab including Lahore, where the Punjab Assembly session was also affected. In Rawalpindi, Benazir Hospital remained without electricity causing major inconvenience to patients and doctors throughout the day.

Other cities affected by the breakdown were Vehari, Sahiwal, Rahim Yar Khan, Kasur, and Faisalabad. Several areas of K-P also endured the breakdown on Wednesday, including Peshawar city..

According to Radio Pakistan, four nuclear power plants at Chashma also tripped due to tripping of main transmission line of Tarbela. A spokesperson of Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission told Radio Pakistan that nuclear plants would be re-connected to the national grid once fault in main transmission line was fixed.

He said, “A single fault had affected the entire power supply system from Karachi to Islamabad.”

Speaking to the media, the spokesperson for Peshawar Electric Supply Company (PESCO), Shaukat Afzal, said an inquiry would be conducted to determine the reason for the fault. He said that all grid stations of the province were restored shortly after the breakdown.

Published in Daily Times, May 17^th 2018.