The National Transmission and Despatch Company Ltd. (NTDC) has been fined Rs. 10 million by the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (NEPRA) because of a partial blackout that happened on September 1, 2021.
Lightning struck isolator D8Q11 at 16:09, causing a flashover on the red phase of the isolator, which tripped the 500/220kV Jamshoro Grid Station and caused the blackout.The affected power units totaled 2000 MWs and included K2 (1030 MW), Hub Power (60 MW), China Hub Power (600 MW), and Wind Power (310 MW).
NEPRA claims that the incident led to power outages in the jurisdictions of K-Electric and Hyderabad Electric Supply Company (HESCO). With the exception of the 500 kV HUBCO-Jamshoro Ckt, which was energised at 21:54 hrs., all affected K-Electric, HESCO grids, wind independent power producers (IPPs), and other power plants had their power supplies restored by 18:42.
Within 2.33 hours, everything returned to normal.Prior to that, NEPRA took the aforementioned occurrence seriously and instructed NTDC to form an inquiry committee in order to thoroughly investigate the situation in light of NEPRA’s laws, rules, and regulations.
As a result, NTDC conducted a thorough investigation on its own. This investigation was then given to the Authority by the transmission team of the Monitoring & Evaluation (M & E) department, and on the basis of this information, the Authority commenced legal action against NTDC.
