Probe begins into Monday’s massive power outage

Muscat: The Authority for Public Services Regulation (APSR) confirmed that it is taking the necessary measures to ensure that licenced companies comply with the implementation of the recommendations resulting from the technical investigation following the power outage.

Dr. Mansour Talib Al Hinai, APSR Chairman, said: “The visit to the “400/200 KV” station in Ibri came as part of the procedures of technical investigation conducted with Oman Electricity Transmission Company following the power outage in the main network.”

He stressed that the technical failure that occurred in the transmission network and causing the power outage was due to purely technical reasons.

He pointed out that the Authority started a technical investigation to review and evaluate the measures taken by the company while addressing the outage.

Al Hinai expects that the two networks in the north and south of Oman will be interconnected by 2026, with the first phase of this process to be completed by 2023.

He added that studies are underway on the implementation of the second phase of the interconnection process.

It may be mentioned that yesterday, a number of regions in the Sultanate witnessed power outage from 1 pm till it was fully restored at 2:22 am on Tuesday.

Long hours of power outage in Oman, had put citizens and residents to great inconvenience, in houses as well as on roads, in the extreme summer heat.

“In some places the power came back late last night so we could sleep at night,” one of the resident said.

The power outage that hit most of the parts of the Sultanate on Monday was the ‘biggest’ in the last 15 years, experts say.

Electrical engineers recalled the last time such wide coverage of power outage happened in June 2007 when the tropical storm Gonu had hit the country. Several schools and colleges were shut, following the power outage.

The second round of the General Education Diploma exams was also postponed on Tuesday, September 6, 2022 due to the power outage in a number of the wilayats of the Sultanate of Oman.