Pakistan Blackout 5

[RRaghunath]

Last week, there was total collapse of Pakistan power grid plunging hole of country in darkness for hours.
Any one from Pakistan in this forum who would like to share technical details please!

 

[cranky108]

That was not what I was being taken out of context about, but yes I was talking about COVID-19.

 

[RRaghunath]

It seems no one has information on Pakistan incident as yet...

 

[dik]

what incident?

Rather than think climate change and the corona virus as science, think of it as the wrath of God. Feel any better?

-Dik

 

[hokie66]

Imran Khan, the great cricketer and now Prime Minister of Pakistan, said the blackout was due to a 'technical fault'.

https://www.ft.com/content/47c4ca69-918c-4cc2-bdcd-38849a6bec73

 

[FacEngrPE]

National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (NEPRA) to investigate. Might be a report eventually.

https://www.techjuice.pk/nepra-to-investigate-nationwide-blackout/

The management troubles are too old to blaim COVID for them.

https://www.dailyexcelsior.com/pakistan-power-outage-caused-by-failure-of-safeguards/

... The officials admitted that the blackout had exposed the mismanagement on the part of the government in running the entire power sector of the country on an ad hoc basis, it said.
The chief executive officers of all the three key companies concerned — the Central Power Generation Company-Guddu, the National Transmission and Dispatch Company (NTDC) and the National Power Control Centre (NPCC) — have been working on ad hoc or acting charge basis for years. ...

My guess here - The holes in the cheese all lined up.
Technical fault at a power plant (do not know what this is yet.)
Transmission line protection settings so that the line did not disconnect the power plant for the technical fault.
The transmission line settings may have been adjusted to reduce tripping, something to do with this line should have it's insulators cleaned several times each year, but that has been deferred for several years.
A transmission system that at the best of times is only marginally stable.

And no confirmed chief executive officers to take responsibility. Sounds like a plan for loosing money - oh that is happening also, something called by IMF circular debt,

Fred

 

[cranky108]

Sort of reminds me of something that Blackburn said at a training session for protection engineers. Always add generation protection in the substation, because who knows what those generations engineers are capable of doing.

Yes there are protection engineers in the power plants, but they are not always told about things that go on.

I was once asked from a powerplant manager, do we really need protective relays. I answered, only if you have a fault.

 

[davidbeach]

When asked how soon a relay setting fix needs to be implemented, I say that we just need it before the next event. Could be that we're already too late but just don't know it yet, could be that it could wait months or years. Best to do it soon.

I’ll see your silver lining and raise you two black clouds. - Protection Operations

 

[cranky108]

So true david.