The General Electricity Company of Libya (GECOL) announced today that a partial blackout occurred in the western section of the electrical grid in the small hours of this morning.
This follows a lengthy live press conference in Tripoli yesterday in which several of GECOL’s top management, including its General Manager, went to lengths to assure the public that the worst of the power cuts were over.
They assured that the new Tripoli South Power station is coming online in days. They also assured that peak summer demand is coming to an end with the arrival of September and that soon power stations will be idle.
GECOL said that this morning’s sudden outage followed a sudden disturbance coinciding with the tripping of two major transmission circuits (Misrata/Al-Khoms 400kV and Bir Al-Ghanam/Al-Ruwais), resulting in a sharp frequency drop from 50 Hz to 47.5 Hz and a loss of balance between generation and load.
The company confirmed that a thorough technical investigation and analysis of protection system logs are underway.
This is to determine the causes of the sudden circuit trips and to ascertain whether they resulted from technical faults or deliberate acts of sabotage and interference aimed at damaging the grid.
The company pledged to restore system stability and transparently disclose the investigation findings to the public, in order to pursue legal measures to protect these facilities, which are considered sovereign assets vital to national security.