KARACHI/ISLAMABAD/LAHORE/QUETTA: Following a massive power breakdown in Pakistan on Monday which affected most of the country’s more than 220 million people, Power Minister Khurrum Dastagir said the national grid should be “fully functioning by 10pm time”.
The hours-long outage, the second in two years, was caused by a fault in the national grid at around 7:30am.
Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad, Quetta and other major urban centres of the country were without electricity.
Speaking to a British wire agency, Power Minister Khurrum Dastagir said the outage was caused by a large voltage surge in the south of the grid, which affected the entire network.
Supplies were being partially restored from north to south, he said that the authorities are trying their utmost to achieve restoration.
Soon after the power breakdown was reported, Dastgir, while talking to Geo News, said that the power generation units are temporarily shut down in winter at night as an economic measure to save fuel costs.
“When the systems were turned on at 7:30am this morning one by one, frequency variation was reported in the southern part of the country between Jamshoro and Dadu. There was a fluctuation in voltage and power generating units were shut down one by one due to cascading impact. This is not a major crisis,” said the federal minister as the country plunged into darkness for the second time in four months.
The minister said that his ministry has started restoring some grid stations in Tarbela and Warsak.
The ministry also claimed that electricity was restored in multiple grid stations of the Islamabad Electric Supply Company (IESCO) and Peshawar Electric Supply Company (PESCO).
Talking about the breakdown in Karachi, the minister said that the matter in the port city is complicated as it has a complete electric supply system.
“We provide K-Electric about 1,000-1,100 megawatts routinely, however, it will be restored within a few hours. It is not certain how long will it take to sort this issue. However, my target is to restore electricity in the country in the next 12 hours,” said the minister.
In the afternoon, Dastgir tweeted that the ministry was working on restoring electricity from north to south.
“Electricity is restored partially in distribution companies Islamabad, Peshawar, Quetta, Multan, and Sukkur,” the minister said.
‘Loss of frequency’
Before the ministry’s announcement, different power distribution companies had confirmed the power breakdown.
Confirming the news, K-Electric said that at approximately 7:34am, the national grid experienced a “loss of frequency”, affecting the power supply to multiple cities across Pakistan.
“This has also cascaded to KE’s network affecting the power supply to Karachi,” the power distribution company said in a brief update issued in this regard.
In the latest update, K-Electric Spokesperson Imran Rana said the teams have been working to restore power across the metropolitan.
He revealed that electricity has been restored in areas near airports, hospitals, Karachi port and other strategic locations on a priority basis.
According to Quetta Electric Supply Company (QESCO), the two transmission lines from Guddu to Quetta tripped. It added that 22 districts of Balochistan, including Quetta, are without power.
Meanwhile, a power outage was also reported in multiple areas of Karachi.
“There are reports of multiple outages from different parts of the city. We are investigating the issue and will keep this space posted,” K-Eletcric spokesperson Imran Rana said.
The IESCO spokesperson said that its 117 gird stations were without electricity.
Meanwhile, PESCO also confirmed an outage in areas where it supplies electricity.
NEPRA takes notice
The National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (NEPRA), in a statement, said that it has taken “serious notice” of the power outage and directed the National Transmission and Despatch Company (NTDC) to submit a “detailed report”.
The statement also said that the regulator has previously imposed fines on similar outages in 2021 and 2022. It also shared that NEPRA has consistently issued directives and recommendations on tackling such events in future.
This is the second time within four months that the country was hit by a major power breakdown.
Karachi, Hyderabad, Sukkur, Quetta, Multan, and Faisalabad were hit by a power outage last year in October.
At that time, the power minister said that nearly 8,000 megawatts of power went offline.
Back then, Dastagir had said that the simultaneous faults in two power lines, which had triggered the breakdown, at the same time was concerning for the government. He had also announced that an in-depth inquiry was ordered and promised action.
A timeline of power breakdowns in Pakistan
The country’s generation and distribution network has suffered eight major power breakdowns during the last nine years.
In 2014 and 2017, nationwide blackouts were caused by a fault in Tarbela Power Station while fog, frequency variation and the Guddu Power Plant fault were blamed for breakdowns in 2015, 2018, 2019, 2021, 2022 and 2023.
Every time the party in power announced to conduct a comprehensive probe and vowed to rectify the issues but nothing has happened despite multiple inquiries.
