Sudan hit by power blackout on Monday
February 27, 2017 (KHARTOUM) – A power blackout hit most of the Sudanese cities on Monday for several hours due to a failure of the automated protection system, said the Ministry of Water Resources, Electricity and Irrigation.
Earlier on Monday, there were reports that the outage was caused by the failure of the feeding units at the Merowe dam, some 350 kilometres north of the capital, Khartoum.
However, the National Centre for Controlling the Electricity Grid announced at a later time on Monday that “some control units lost direct current and went out of the automated protection system leading to a total power blackout”.
According to the National Centre, the hydro and thermal power generation stations were run in order to restore the power services gradually.
Thermal generation makes up to 50% of Sudan’s electricity production while electricity produced by Merowe and El-Ruseiris dams amounts to 3050 megawatts.
The upper Atbara and Setit dam which was inaugurated last month is expected to produce 320 megawatts.
In December 2014, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) said that Sudan will face a problem in electricity production in the future if it does not develop alternative projects due to decreased rainfall and increased consumption.
According to the UN, 35% of Sudan’s population has access to electricity while more than 25 million people are not yet been connected to the national electricity grid.
(ST)