NPCC report blames no one for countrywide power breakdown

The National Power and Control Center (NPCC) has released a report on the nationwide power breakdown that could not identify the people behind the glitch that plunged the whole of the country into darkness on Saturday night, reported 24NewsHD TV channel, quoting its sources on Tuesday.

The power breakdown report has also been submitted to the Power Division. The NPCC has prepared this report on technical points, the TV channel reported.

According to the report, 500 KV Guddu Muzaffargarh and Guddu DG Khan Transmission Line tripped on January 9 at 11:41 pm followed by the shutdown of the entire power system.

“The frequency of the system before the breakdown was 49.85. Prior to the breakdown, the system was generating a total of 10,311 MW of electricity. As many as 983 MW of electricity were being generated from government thermal power plants,” the report stated.

The TV channel quoting the report reported the system maintenance process started from Tarbela, Mangla and Warsak powerhouses and the power system continued tripping due to excessive fluctuations in frequency.

“Tarbela and Mangla were interlinked to stabilize the system and the then ongoing maintenance at the Guddu power plant was not announced in advance prior to the power failure,” the sources claimed. 

It is pertinent to note that opposition parties accused the PTI government of telling lies to cover up its failure in the power generation sector over a major fault in the electricity distribution system.

PML-N secretary general Ahsan Iqbal said the worst-ever power shutdown proved that the incumbent PTI government was incompetent.

Earlier, Central Power Generation Company Limited (CPGC) suspended seven officials and employees after one of the worst electricity breakdowns in the country on Saturday night.

Central Power Generation Company Limited (GENCO-II) is responsible for power generation in Pakistan which is owned by Water and Power Development Authority (Wapda).

Guddu plant, built in the 1980s, is one of the country's largest and generates power from furnace oil and natural gas.

The blackout, which started shortly before midnight on Saturday, was caused by an engineering fault which tripped the system and caused power plants across the country to shut down.

Pakistan's electricity supply system is a complex and delicate web, and a problem in one section of the grid can lead to cascading breakdowns countrywide.

The outage marked Pakistan's second major power breakdown in less than three years.

In May 2018, power was partially disrupted for more than nine hours, while in 2015 an apparent rebel attack on a key supply line plunged around 80 percent of the country into darkness.