System was hit by safety disregard: Power breakdown probe report
By Khaleeq Kiani
ISLAMABAD, Sept 27: A committee of Wapda inquiring into Sunday’s nationwide power breakdown has concluded that pre-cautionary measures were not taken and standard operating procedures were not observed in repairing the transmission line, causing the massive outage, Dawn has learnt.
The four-member committee headed by Wapda’s former member power Chaudhry Ghulam Rasool has also observed that Wapda’s operating procedures are not of international standard and require “a lot of improvements”.
Mr Ghulam Rasool submitted his three-page report to Water and Power Minister Liaquat Ali Jatoi, who presented it to Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz on Wednesday.
It has now been proved through computer record that the major cause of the breakdown was the tripping of two (2X450) transformers at Rawat just a minute before the countrywide collapse at 1342 hours on Sunday.
Failed relays of these transformers triggered cascading trippings as one 500kv line was already under maintenance. This overloading of about 900mw travelled to the Faisalabad line and then shifted to the Lahore 500kv line and to 220kv lines.
The report does not specifically hold anybody responsible for the lapse.
It has recommended that the operating procedures for repair of transmission lines and power generation plants should be improved substantially.
The report also recommended induction of advanced technology like automatic switching boards, upgradation of computer network and alternative back-up support.
The report proposed that Wapda workforce should be imparted training on modern lines to avoid such eventualities in future.
Other members of the committee are Chaudhry Fazal Ahmad, Rao Qamar Irshad and Khan Mohammad, belonging to different wings of Wapda.
Informed sources said that the other inquiry committee headed by joint secretary power Arshad Mehmood had not yet completed its probe.
