Power supply resumes after major breakdown in Karachi

KARACHI: Power supply was restored to almost all the areas of Karachi on Saturday after a night-long breakdown plunged large swathes of the city into darkness.

This was the second major breakdown in the city, since the August 11 power failure.

The breakdown affected the Dhabeji, Gharo, and Pipri power stations, adversely impacting water supply to Karachi.

It also affected the supply of electricity to a several areas in Sindh and a few in Balochistan.

Power supply was restored in Lasbela and Thatta and surroundings areas after a span of six hours. In Hyderabad, it took eight hours for the power supply to restore.

'Rollover effect on Karachi's electric supply'

Areas that experienced power outage included Defence, Saddar, North Karachi, Soldier Bazar, Gulistan-e-Jauhar, Pak Colony, PECHS, Lines Area, Mehmoodabad, Baloch Colony, and Jamshed Road, among many others.

The city's Jinnah International Airport was also impacted by the suspension of electricity, with major portions of Jinnah Terminal and the rest of the airport facing pitch blackness. However, alternative power sources were being utilised for the sensitive areas.

On its official Twitter page, K-Electric, the metropolis' sole power supplier, said a "500KV transmission line connecting KE to the National Grid has tripped."

"This has had a rollover effect on Karachi's electric supply due to which various parts of the city are experiencing an Outage. Restoration efforts are underway with some affected areas already back online.

The "power situation in the city is expected to improve significantly in the next 4 to 5 hours. We will continue to share updates," it added.

Earlier, a KE spokesperson had confirmed that the power supply to most of the megapolis was suspended due to the tripping of an extra high-tension (EHT) line.

78 grid stations shut down: HESCO chief

Earlier, Raham Ali Otho, the chief executive at Hyderabad Electric Supply Company (HESCO), had confirmed that various cities of Sindh were experiencing a major power outage, owing to the fact that "all 78 grid stations of HESCO [were] shut down".

"There is a technical fault at 500KV station in Jamshoro," he stated, adding that there was a complete outage in "13 districts of Sindh", including Hyderabad, Digri, Tando Jam, Matiari, Tando Muhammad Khan, Nawabshah, Mirpur Khas, Umerkot, Sanghar, Badin, Matli, Golarchi, Talhar, Tando Bago, Nindo, Serani, and Khoski.

The National Transmission & Dispatch Company (NTDC) was working to determine the fault causing the power outage, Otho noted, adding that wind farms in Thatta and Jhimpir were also shut down.

Experts' analyses

Syed Tanzeem Hussain Naqvi, a former chairperson at the KE, said a dilapidated system was the reason behind the citywide power outage.

"The load on Karachi's power supplying system is increasing and no upgradation has been done to manage it," Naqvi explained.

There has been no renovation in the system for the past eight years, he noted.

On the other hand, experts said the NTDC system's tripping should have cause a 600MW power shortage, which was why the breakdown in majority of Karachi's areas did not make sense.

Shunt isolators in grid stations help avert tripping incidents, the experts explained, adding that they can curb tripping waves and resume power in an hour.

In the past as well, the experts added, power resumption had taken a long time as tripping crises were not averted due to the aforementioned reasons.