SEB: Sarawak outage may have originated from Bakun

A frequency drop in the power system that triggered a blackout in much of Sarawak yesterday evening may have originated from the Bakun hydro-electric plant, Sarawak Energy Berhad (SEB) chief executive officer Torstein Dale Sjotveit (below) said today. 

He said the system trip led to a total failure of SEB’s system and all its power stations were down, including at Sejingkat in Kuching, Batang Ai, the Mukah coal plant as well as the Bintulu and Miri gas plants. 

“The reasons for the incident that started at 5.36pm yesterday are still not fully known, but with the facts retrievable as of now it looks like the frequency drop may have originated from the Bakun Hydroelectric plant,” he said in a statement emailed to Bernama in Kuching. 

In apologising to those who had suffered from the blackout and for all the inconvenience and losses caused, he gave the assurance that SEB would do its best to normalise the situation by this morning following the unexpected problems experienced to recover the system. 

He said all SEB transmission systems, including the Kemena-Bintulu transmission line, were restored over the first couple of hours after the system tripped but it was only able to get power from two of the four Bakun power units after 11pm yesterday. 

“The system is still very unstable due to the huge impact but I have, at present, a strong team at Menara Sarawak Energy here of 30 over of our best people to oversee and restore the system step by step,” he said, adding that hundreds of SEB staff were also mobilised around Sarawak at power stations and substations to support and monitor the recovery of the system. 

He also gave an assurance that a proper investigation would be done with third party input to maximise the learning SEB could get from this very serious incident.

Power was almost fully restored in Kuching city by 10.45pm yesterday while it was partially restored in Miri and Bintulu with Sibu still facing a blackout.

In Lawas, consumers were unaffected and enjoyed uninterrupted power supply as the area is not connected to the main grid.

- Bernama