An inquiry committee has identified several causes/faults that resulted in 12 hour-long power breakdown in almost half of the country last week.
In this regard, the Energy Ministry’s Power Division quoted the committee’s report and said that substandard work, outdated material, and the use of tampered connectors in Karachi’s nuclear power plants played their part in the countrywide blackout.
According to the report, poor quality and short-term work on tower no. 26 of Karachi nuclear power plants K-2 and K-3 in 2019 was the first reason behind the blackout on 13 October.
In addition, the committee also found that the connectors were tweaked to be used as temporary interconnection and they were not meant for the transmission lines. Furthermore, the project team installed 25-year-old faulty connectors on towers no. 26, 26-A, and 27.
Moreover, periodic maintenance work was not conducted as well, keeping in view the sensitivity of the nuclear power plants. Hence, the Power Division said that it will take disciplinary action against the culprits.
Note that the National Transmission and Despatch Company (NTDC) constituted the four-member committee to investigate the faults behind the major power breakdown. Technical General Manager (GM), Mohammad Mustafa, headed the committee, which included GM, Anwar Ahmad Khan, Chief Engineers, Mohammad Ijaz Khan, and Mohammad Zakaria, as members.
The committee’s findings are consistent with early reports stating that the blackout was caused by an overload of 27-year-old existing lines close to two nuclear plants, each of which has a 1,100-megawatt capacity. The overload occurred due to a delay in the completion of new lines.
Resultantly, the old connectors’ malfunction moved the entire 2,200-megawatt load to the Hub-Jamshoro line, which caused the blackout due to overload.
Therefore, the system operator shifted partial load to the Port Qasim-Matiari line which caused a chain of breakdowns up to the Gati-Faisalabad lines along with no power supply to several DISCOs across the country.
Hence, experts recommend appointing technical specialists in the NTDC, as the institute has been under the control of the general cadres for the last 10 years.
