Tag Archives: National Transmission and Dispatch Company (NTDC)

Major power breakdowns force NTDC to apprise

on 30/06/2018

NTDC board apprised how system collapsed in May power breakdowns

Three major power breakdowns in May have forced the National Transmission and Dispatch Company (NTDC) to carry out a highly technical study to propose further islanding options both in the Northern and Southern transmission systems.

The core objective behind this exercise is to boost the system protection and avoid incidents of tripping, triggering supply failures in north of the country. To this end, a consultant of international repute will be hired.

The study would have recommendations related to dividing north and southern systems in maximum seven independent clusters so as to avoid cascading effect of such breakdowns.

The decision was made in a meeting of the NTDC`s board of directors presided over by Babar Iqbal at WAPDA House on a single-point agenda to ascertain the facts regarding partial power failure as well as the way forward.The board was firm commitment to revamp and revitalize the transmission system of the country and instructed the management to fully investigate, analyze and determine the causes of the failure and for adopting mitigating measures to avoid such system collapse in the future.

NTDC management presented a comprehensive and detailed analysis of the incident, specifically the key system limitations of contingency. The board was apprised that the two 500 kilo volt transmission lines tripped due to fault at Guddu Power House switchyard triggering the third line`s breakdown as it could not sustain the load of the other two. As a result, the system was split in two regions North and South. The under frequency relays installed in the northern system isolated around 2,800 megawatts power load to stabilize the system.In the meantime, loss of additional generation in the North lead to collapse of the system and there was no further capacity available in the system to isolate an equivalent load.

 

Why MD NTDC was removed

on 23/07/2017

The federal government has removed Managing Director, National Transmission and Dispatch Company (NTDC) Dr Fiaz Ahmad Chaudhry reportedly for failing to complete CPEC-related projects on time. The Board of Directors of the company adopted procedure under Companies Act 2017 under sections 190(1) and 190(2) and unanimously decided to remove Dr. Fiaz. The board appointed Zafar Abbas as new MD of the company. He was working earlier as director, NTDC. Dr Fiaz who was appointed on June 30 last years an electrical engineer with over 31 years of experience in power sector. The BOD, reports said had noticed that the interconnections of main projects of CPEC like 500 KV Port Qasim line, 220 KV Gharo line, 500 KV Rahim Yar Khan-Moro line (3rd Circuit) had not been handled in proper way and thus jeopardized completions of full transmission of new generation. Also, delay in 132 KV line Patrind hydropower project added up fuel to the fire as it caused damages to the tune of Rs200 million per month.  Similarly, non-provision of appropriate evacuation for wind projects, generation is being curtailed resulting in Rs329 million capacity charges penalties on the power purchaser. On removal of key system constraints to allow full flow of power in 2017 for which comprehensive exercise was conducted by the ministry in 2016, the NTDC missed major timelines. Resultantly, the system witnessed critical shortcomings during the month of Ramazan. An NTDC handout said national transmission stabilisation remained a major challenge which could not be achieved. Moreover, the situation in southern part of the country was further aggravated resulting in the system collapse on 1st and 2nd Ramazan plunging large parts of southern grid in darkness. The situation was further compounded by the frequent collapse of 500 KV circuit towers due to lack of maintenance as per SOPs. The response to restore the system was highly dissatisfactory resulting in discomfort to the consumers.