STELCO warns of more power cuts in Malé
The State Electricity Company has warned of more power cuts in Malé after damage to a high-voltage cable left two-third of the capital without electricity in the early hours of Sunday.
28 May 2017, 9:00 AM
The State Electricity Company has warned of more power cuts in Malé after damage to a high-voltage cable left most of the capital without electricity in the early hours of Sunday.
Abdul Shukoor, managing director of the state-owned utility company, told the press Sunday afternoon that the damaged cable was connected to a new 8.9-megawatt generator set up last week. The new engine shut down and caused a blackout in more than two-thirds of the capital from 2 am to 5 am.
“The next largest generator then found it hard to take up peak load and shut down,” he explained, adding that engines are programmed to shut off automatically in a sequence as a safety precaution.
“That means the two biggest [generators] turned off. That is about 17 megawatts. When 17,000 kilowatts went off at the same time, the rest couldn’t take up the slack and [power] got cut off automatically to that extent.”
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