Minister of Energy Khurram Dastagir Khan on Thursday assured the nation that the electricity transmission system will be “Completely Restored” around 8pm following a major power breakdown that left large swathes of southern Pakistan, including financial capital Karachi, without electricity.
The Ministry of Energy attributed the breakdown to an “accidental fault” in the transmission system.
“Several power plants in the south are tripping in phases due to an accidental fault in the country’s southern transmission system. As a result, there have been disruptions in the supply of electricity to the country’s south,” the ministry said in a tweet following reports of power outages.
مُلک کے جنوبی ٹرانسمیشن سسٹم میں حادثاتی خرابی کے باعث متعدد جنوبی پاور پلانٹس مرحلہ وار ٹرِپ ہو رہے ہیں جس سے مُلک کے جنوبی حصے میں بجلی کی ترسیل میں رکاوٹ آ رہی ہے۔وزارتِ توانائی پوری تندہی سے خرابی کی وجہ کی تفتیش کر رہی ہے اور جلد از جلد بجلی کے نظام کو مکمل بحال کر لیاجائگا
— Ministry of Energy (@MoWP15) October 13, 2022
Later, Energy Minister Khurram Dastgir Khan, in a press conference was hopeful that electricity would be fully restored “to normalcy” by tonight, and announced that power had begun returning to parts of southern Punjab.
“We will restore the system between Maghrib and Isha,” said the minister in a press conference. He added that an inquiry team has been formed headed by GM Technical NTDC to investigate the matter which will submit its report within five days.
The minister told reporters that due to the breakdown a shortfall of 8,000 megwatts emerged, adding that at least 4,700 megawatts have been restored.
Khan said that it will take a few hours to restore the plants that have tripped and was hopeful that plants providing electricity to Karachi will also be restored.
He shared the preliminary findings of the circumstances that led to the breakdown. “This morning at 9:16am, our two 500kv lines in the south — Karachi — there was a fault in both of them. I am not calling it an accident yet, because an inquiry has yet to be conducted. […] there was a fault in them, and they fell, as a result the country’s southern region saw an electricity blackout.
“Our first priority was to isolate Karachi from it, and we were successful in doing so and we isolated Karachi from it by 9:45. By isolate, I mean that the 1,000MW that we provide to Karachi daily, was cut. But KE’s system is independently operational and is supplying electricity to [parts of] the city.” The ministry shared that it was working to detect the fault and restore electricity in the southern part country at the earliest.
K-Electric spokesperson Imran Rana has confirmed that multiple areas of the city were facing outage and the process for restoration of the power supply has started.
“Strategic installations including airport and hospitals are provided electricity,” Rana tweeted.
Other districts of Sindh that were without power were Hyderabad, Thatta, Jamshoro, Sujawal, Badin, Tando Muhammad Khan, Tando Allah Yar; Mirpurkhas, Umarkot, Sanghar, Nawabshah, Matiari, Tharparkar, Larkana.
Later in the day, the Ministry for Power constituted a high-level inquiry committee to ascertain facts pertaining to the partial breakdown.
According to an order issued by the National Transmission and Despatch Company Limited (NTDC), the committee will be headed by Muhammad Mustafa — Lahore general manager (technical) — and comprise Anwar Ahmed Khan, Muhammad Ijaz Khan, and Muhammad Zakaria.
It stated that the committee will be required to determine the root cause of the default, ascertain if the faults leading to the blackout could have been prevented, and verify if measures taken by concerned departments were adequate.
The committee will be required to submit a report within four days, the order added.
