SEB doing its best to complete second transmission line by middle of this year
KUCHING: Sarawak Energy (SEB) is now racing against time to complete the RM2.7- billion 500kV second transmission line by middle of the year to minimise the incidence of outages.
This was disclosed by a spokesperson of the corporation who also appealed to the people for their cooperation and understanding to support the mission to complete the project by middle of this year.
The urgent completion of the critical packages of this state infrastructure project is crucial to strengthen power system security and minimise the risk of major blackouts such as happened on Feb 19.
Sarawak Energy has embarked on this massive RM2.7- billion infrastructure upgrading project in October 2013 as a second transmission backbone running parallel to the present 275kV transmission grid.
The project was supposed to be completed by end of 2015, but has encountered delays due to wayleave issues. In recognition of the urgency of this infrastructure project, the state government has established a multi- agency taskforce to coordinate and tackle the issues.
In the event of double circuit tripping of the existing 275kV transmission grid, electricity will still be able to be transmitted from power plants in the northern part of the state to the southern region.
When contacted, Minister of Public Utilities Dato Sri Dr Stephen Rundi said Sarawak Energy will continue to prioritise the completion of the 500kV second transmission line to strengthen reliability of electricity supply to the central and western regions of the state.
“This is expected to minimise the risk of a major outage from occurring in the southern region where the bulk of the population resides,” Dr Rundi told The Borneo Post yesterday.
He reiterated that with the two parallel transmission backbones, power supply will be able to continue from the state’s major generation power plants concentrated in the north such as Bakun and Murum HEPs to customers in Sarawak, particularly in the more densely populated southern region should the lines trip.
“Until its completion, we are stepping up measures to manage the condition of our transmission lines including stepping up the line and tower inspection and vegetation clearing using drones. We are also installing a new lightning monitoring system to track the lightning activities around this area,” he assured.
On the double circuit tripping of the Selangau-Kemena 275kV transmission line on Feb 19, Dr Rundi said it was suspected to have been caused by lightning.
“Sarawak Energy’s defence system kicked in immediately enabling the islanding of major parts of the Central and Western regions. The defence system worked effectively to sustain the Kuching-Mukah Island thus enabling quick restoration.
“This is a direct result of several modifications to the system after the November 2016 outage, following the recommendations of an international consultant which has speeded up recovery time,” he said.
Efforts included changing the settings of Batang Ai HEP which continued to operate after the tripping incident, unlike the outage in November.
“This allowed supply to be completely restored in under two hours with some parts already having supply within minutes,” he said.
Dr Rundi thanked the people for their patience and regretted the inconvenience caused by the recent power failure.
“Please be assured that the response teams are continuously on standby ( 24/7) seven days a week to ensure fast restoration in the event of outage,” he added.