By Mohamed Farag and Mohamed Adel
Many districts across Cairo witnessed a power outage for several hours, due to the high temperature, which affected a South Cairo power stations’ efficiency.
Ahmed Al-Hanafy, Head of the Egyptian Electricity Transmission Company (EETC), said that a southern Cairo power plant suffered from an outage at 10am on Tuesday. As a result, network transformer substations supplying areas in southern Cairo including Maadi, Wadi Houf and Basatin, amongst others, were out of service.
He told Daily News Egypt that the high temperature caused the station’s sudden problem. He added that loads were temporarily transferred from the station for the time of maintenance. Al-Hanafy explained that urgent maintenance was taking place to provide power as soon as possible for areas suffering from outages.
Al-Hanafy added that the national network for electricity has been stable for the last 60 days, without any need to decrease loads or cut off the power. The electricity network maximum consumption on Tuesday was 29.1 MW, and power was not decreased.
He added that what happened on Tuesday was a sudden incident, and that the Ministry of Electricity managed to overcome these blackouts. He called upon the citizens to rationalise their consumption in the evening peak time to protect the electrical network.
The Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Company (EGAS) pumps around 146 cubic metres of gas and oil equivalent, on a daily basis, to stations.
A senior EGAS official told Daily News Egypt that the daily amounts needed by the Ministry of Electricity in its plan was estimated at 143 cubic metres of gas and oil.
The official added that, if the power plants’ fuel consumption rates increase, they will not be able to provide more quantities of natural gas, and will be compensated by black oil shipments.
