Pakistan Plunged into Major Power Outage Due to Grid Failure
According to official reports from the Ministry of Energy, the national grid experienced a system failure of frequency at 7:34 a.m. local time, leading to a widespread breakdown. Here is all you need to know when and how Pakistan Plunged into Major Power Outage Due to Grid Failure
When did the power outage occurred?
On Monday, Pakistan experienced a significant power outage due to a “frequency variation” in the national grid, which left a significant portion of the country, including the capital city of Islamabad and the financial center of Karachi, without electricity. The Ministry of Energy reported that the system failure occurred at 7:34 a.m. local time. The ministry stated that maintenance work was being carried out swiftly and Energy Minister Khurram Dastgir confirmed that restoration efforts were underway.
What Energy Minister Khurram Dastgir said?
Energy Minister Khurram Dastgir ensured that power will be fully restored throughout the country within the next 12 hours, as reported by Geo News. He explained that the failure occurred due to the shutting down of the power generation system at night during lower demand in the winter to save on fuel costs. However, when the systems were turned on in the morning, a “frequency variation and voltage fluctuation” was observed in the south of the country between Dadu and Jamshoro, leading to a sequential shutting down of power generating units.
Cities affected in Power Outage
On Monday, residents of Pakistan’s financial hub, Karachi, woke up to a city-wide power outage. The breakdown also affected other cities across Pakistan, but Karachi was the most severely impacted. In the city of Peshawar, home to over 2.3 million people, some residents were unable to access drinking water as the pumps were dependent on electricity. This is not the first time the country has faced such a crisis.
Pakistan Power Outage
In October of last year, Pakistan experienced a 12-hour power outage caused by technical issues in the electricity distribution system. The country is currently facing one of its worst economic crises in recent years, with rapidly decreasing foreign exchange reserves. As a result, the government recently implemented a measure requiring shopping malls and markets to close at 8:30 p.m. for energy conservation purposes. The poor state of the power sector is a reflection of the country’s struggling economy, with frequent Pakistan power outages stemming from a lack of funding for upgrading aging infrastructure.
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