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Fog causes major break-down in Wapda system

RECORDER REPORT

LAHORE: The prevalent severe foggy weather was again the major cause of power breakdown in the Wapda system at 3.56 a.m. on Sunday (January 2).The fog created problems for air and road traffic.

However, as a result of concentrated efforts of Wapda engineers and technicians, its network was restored within six hours by 9.30 a.m.

Three 220 kv high voltage transmission lines at 500 kv grid station, New Multan, tripped at 3:56 hours when Wapda system was generating 5,470 megawatts of power, while Multan area was under the grip of severe fog. Consequently, the 500/220 kv transformers at the Multan grid station were overloaded and separated from major source of generation from Multan area.

Due to this factor, the supply and demand balance in the Wapda system north of Multan was heavily burdened.This caused cascaded tripping on other high voltage lines in Multan, Faisalabad, Tarbela and Mangla area. As such power plants at Mangla and Tarbela were isolated from the system.

Wapda engineers immediately started restoration work and bought Mangla and Tarbela power generation back on bars soon. Resultantly, the electric supply to the federal capital, Islamabad was restored in less than one hour.

After the different parts of Wapda network were reconnected and supply normalized in phases, the major part of the Wapda network was restored on Sunday, by 9.30 a.m.