JAKARTA (Xinhua/Agencies): Bad weather triggered a widespread power outage across parts of Indonesia's Sumatra island on Friday evening, disrupting the regional transmission system, state electricity company PT PLN said on Saturday.
The blackout began at 6.44pm local time after disturbances along transmission lines caused a decline in system frequency and triggered cascading failures across several areas, PLN President Director Darmawan Prasodjo said in a statement.
PLN said the affected transmission network was restored within about two hours, allowing crews to shift focus to restarting power plants and reconnecting generation units to the grid.
According to Darmawan, hydroelectric and gas-fired power plants were able to resume operations relatively quickly, while coal-fired plants required between 15 and 20 hours to return to full operating capacity.
Darmawan said the outage affected southern, central, and northern Sumatra, causing widespread blackouts in residential and commercial areas.
“Once again, we are putting forth our best efforts, mobilizing all our resources, and remaining vigilant to ensure a swift recovery of the power system,” Darmawan said during a press conference on Saturday.
He said the affected provinces include Aceh, North Sumatra, West Sumatra, Riau, and Jambi. The disruption was recorded at 18:44 Western Indonesia Time (WIB) and immediately reported to the Directorate General of Electricity under the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources.
According to Darmawan, the initial trigger was a failure in the 275 kV transmission line between Muara Bungo and Sungai Rumbai in Jambi, which led to disturbances across power plants in the system, causing partial load shedding and supply imbalances.
He explained that in some areas, system frequency and voltage increased, triggering automatic shutdowns at power plants. In other areas, reduced generation caused shortages, leading to drops in frequency and voltage that further strained the system and forced additional shutdowns.
“This situation cascaded into a disturbance in the power supply system from Jambi, Riau, North Sumatra all the way to Aceh,” he said.
To accelerate recovery efforts, hundreds of personnel were deployed across affected provinces, including Jambi, West Sumatra, Riau, North Sumatra and Aceh. -- Xinhua/Agencies
