The interior of Sindh, Balochistan, southern Punjab, and Karachi were all severely affected by a significant breakdown in the electricity system on Thursday as a result of an unintentional malfunction in the southern transmission system, which shut down numerous generation units totaling 8000 MW.
Around 9.30 am, the Guddu fault occurred, cutting off electricity to parts of Hesco, Sepco, Mepco, and KE.
Power Division initially claimed in a tweet that “due to an inadvertent failure in the country’s southern transmission system, numerous southern power plants are tripping in stages, which is interrupting the transmission of electricity in southern portions of the country.” The energy system will be fully restored as soon as feasible. The Ministry of Energy is carefully looking into the origin of the malfunction.
Khurram Dastgir Khan, the minister for power, later said during a news conference that a team of investigators led by the general manager of technical NTDC had been assembled to look into the incident’s origin. Within four days, the Committee will deliver its report to Power Division on what caused the accident.
The GM (Technical Services), NPCC Chief, and General Manager (Asset Management), who are impartial and free from conflicts of interest, will also be members of the inquiry team.
The Minister claimed that the failure was caused by tripping, which originated in Karachi and spread to other regions of the nation. He added that three teams were on the scene to deal with the conductors, the repair team, and the inquiry.
He revealed early conclusions on what caused the power outage, saying that two 500KV transmission lines in South Karachi developed faults at 9:16 this morning. Because a thorough investigation has not yet been completed, I am holding off on declaring it an accident.
According to him, simultaneous faults in two lines in the south of Karachi—NK-1, which evacuates the electricity-generating Kanupp 1 and 2 plants, and Jamshoro, which serves K-2 and K-3—came to light. This was unexpected, and an investigation is currently being carried out.
The Minister said that the system’s primary achievement was that it prevented a power outage in northern Pakistan because the problem was contained to the southern regions of the nation.
According to him, the power plants that shut down owing to the transmission problem are now being restored one at a time in accordance with their technical requirements. These include nuclear power plants, imported coal plants, and Thar coal.
The Minister stated, “We encountered a challenge for the time being, but we have dealt with it well,” adding that, if necessary, disciplinary action would be implemented in light of the inquiry report. He claimed that tripping began close to Karachi and spread northward. “There was a failure in both of the lines in Karachi’s south at the same time: NK1 and Jamshoro.”
In reply to a question he said “we should offer Namaz-e-Istasqa for political stability in the country so that the government could work to reform the institutions instead of focusing on long marches.”
The Minister said that 1000MW of electricity to KE was disrupted but its own generation system was delivering electricity.
