Power blackout has been continuous and is affecting businesses and individuals on a daily basis throughout the country, and not only in the capital city, Port Moresby.
One of the PNG’s daily newspapers ran a headline today which prompted the PNG Power Chief Executive Officer Obed Batia to release a statement to clarify all of its customers regarding the blackout issue faced right throughout the country.
CEO Batia stated that due to the challenges on its operations nationwide is affecting the supply of a safe and reliable electricity supply.
“In Port Moresby, recent system outages were experienced due to technical issues between all generation power stations both at PNG Power and the Independent Power Producers (IPPs). We are working together with our IPP stakeholders to ensure we correct those issues with respect grid control and regulation issues, in order to provide stable power.”
“Other isolated outage around the city is due to current rain fall and vegetation controls. Many customers resist PNG Power officers from cutting the trees and clearing of the vegetation within their properties. We are working with external parties to control this” Batia said.
Mr Batia also clarified the blackouts in other parts of the country.
“On the Ramu Grid, we continue to undergo load shedding in Madang and the Highlands Provinces as the Ramu Hydropower Stations cannot supply to full generation capacity due to lower water levels at the Yonki Dam Reservoir. This has affected our supply since August 2022.”
“Lae has been split to run on ‘island mode’, mainly getting its supply from the Taraka and Mildford Power Station, Baiune Power Station in Bulolo and the Munum IPP.”
“All Highlands centres and Madang have their standby power stations which supplement the load. There has been little increase in the water level but not to a capacity for the Ramu Hydropower Station to generate to full capacity yet.”
“Gazelle Grid has stopped load shedding and the system is back to normal for Kokopo, Rabaul and Kerevat customers.”
“In all other provincial centres that run on diesel fuel power stations, our challenge is ensuring our fuel suppliers get supply to our power stations on time. When there is late supply, our teams resort to load shedding, which is conserving fuel until the next supply of fuel is delivered.”
“Discussions are ongoing with our fuel suppliers to ensure we have an understanding on time to supply diesel for our power stations” Batia added.
