Sarawak Hidro, Electrical Inspectorate Unit investigating causes of massive blackout
Zulkifle Osman
KUCHING: Sarawak Hidro will investigate further the causes of the Bakun hydro-electric power dam’s sudden drop of input which led to a major blackout in the state on Thursday night.
The Electrical Inspectorate Unit (EIU) of the Ministry of Public Utilities has also launched an investigation to determine the cause of the power outage.
Ministry of Public Utilities Electricity Supply state director Syed Mohamad Fauzi Shahab said in a statement this was to find out mitigation measures to prevent such occurrences from happening again.
The statewide blackout was said to have occurred due to a serious frequency drop coming from Bakun HEP Dam.
Meanwhile, according to Sarawak Hidro’s managing director Zulkifle Osman, they had not found the cause of the trip thus further investigations needed to be carried out by all parties.
“The latest analysis from Bakun system’s recorder shows that Bakun units tripped possibly in responding to external disturbances,” Zulkifle said in a press statement issued to The Borneo Post here last night.
He disclosed that a technical discussion was held at Bakun yesterday between representatives from EIU, Grid System Management (GSM) and Sarawak Hidro.
“Total generation from Bakun prior to the trip was at 900 MW with total available capacity of 1,200 MW,” he said.
He further explained that no online testing was carried out on the fifth Bakun power unit which was still under commissioning programme.
“At 5.36 pm, Bakun initiated a restoration plan with close coordination with the Sarawak Dispatch Centre (SDC) of Sarawak Energy Berhad (SEB) by utilising all available resources and successfully fed most of the grid’s requirements with four of Bakun’s operating units and one commissioning unit,” he said adding that at 4.30 pm yesterday, four of its operating units were running smoothly.
SEB chief executive officer Torstein Dale Sjotveit had told a press conference earlier yesterday that the blackout on Thursday may have been triggered by a frequency drop originating from the Bakun hydro-electric plant.
He said the system trip led to a total failure of SEB’s system and all its power stations were down, including at Sejingkat in Kuching, Batang Ai, the Mukah coal plant as well as the Bintulu and Miri gas plants.
“The reasons for the incident that started at 5.36 pm yesterday are still not fully known, but from the facts retrievable as of now it looks like the frequency drop may have originated from the Bakun hydro-electric plant,” said Sjotveit.
He added that the state-wide blackout was caused by tripped circuits at the Kemena-Bintulu transmission lines.