PETALING JAYA: The power outage at Kuala Lumpur International Airport Terminal 2 (KLIA2) on Aug 28 was caused by a circulating current along the underground cable route, Malaysia Airports Holdings Berhad (MAHB) reveals in its technical report.
In a statement by the Transport Ministry, it said the current, which formed between the 33kV substation supplying power to KLIA2 and the terminal’s 11kV substations, led to localised heating at cable terminations and eventually caused a flashover.
“High soil resistivity was also found to have indirectly contributed to the incident by limiting the discharge of current into the ground, which in turn increased thermal stress on the cable sheath wires,” the ministry said in a statement on Friday (Sept 26).
The ministry said MAHB has since carried out immediate remedial works, including repairing all cable terminations, installing sheath voltage limiters at cross-bonding points, reconfiguring the grounding system, and enhancing preventive maintenance with partial discharge testing and thermographic inspections.
"For long-term improvements, MAHB is also studying the installation of an Automatic Transfer Switch (ATS) system to speed up backup power supply, optimising the use of generators to cover more critical services, shortening the preventive maintenance schedule for genset load testing from three months to two, and conducting a comprehensive study of soil resistivity along cable routes.
“The government’s priority is to ensure this incident is addressed swiftly with effective preventive measures so that such disruptions do not recur,” the statement added.
The ministry assured that no critical airport operations were disrupted during the blackout.
“The ministry will continue to monitor the follow-up measures by MAHB to ensure safety, efficiency and system reliability at KLIA remain at the highest level.
"We remain committed to safeguarding the country’s air transport services and maintaining Malaysia’s position as a regional aviation hub,” it said.
