Minister for deputing additional ground teams, enhancing monitoring in fog hit areas

ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Power Division Omar Ayub Khan Thursday directed the National Transmission and Despatch Company (NTDC) to depute additional ground teams and increase monitoring patrolling in the fog hit areas to timely rectify any fault on high transmission lines besides taking precautionary measures to avoid trippings in the days to come.

He further directed NTDC to take all necessary steps for restoration of tripped lines so that consumers can get uninterrupted power supply, a press statement said.

The minister passed these directions while personally monitoring and supervising at National Power Control Center (NPCC) the restoration of NTDC lines in Central and Southern Punjab hit by dense fog this early morning.

Power Division Secretary Irfan Ali also accompanied the federal minister.

Omar Ayub Khan appreciated the NTDC ground teams for their hard work in extreme weather conditions for restoration of high transmission lines. He directed the NTDC MD to take all safety measures by the ground teams while conducting these operations.

NTDC MD and NPCC General Manager briefed the federal minister and secretary that due to heavy fog, 500KV and 220 KV transmission lines in NTDC network tripped resulting in reduction of power generation from plants like Guddu 747 & Balloki Power plants besides power failure to 220KV grid stations at Ghazi Road & Sarfrznagar, Bhawalpur, Vehari and Lal Sohanra.

The loss of generation resulted in under frequency load management of 249MW in Distribution Companies’ 132 KV network. Six circuits of 500KV and 22 circuits of 220KV were affected by the tripping. A total of 88 circuits of 132KV in LESCO, FESCO and MEPCO were affected as result of tripping of high transmission lines. Total power generation that reduced due to the tripping was 2977MW.

It was further apprised that due to generation reduction temporary load management of 3011MW was implemented in distribution companies.

With improvement in power generation, the allocation is being gradually increased and the temporary load management will accordingly be reduced inn DISCOs.