Ramu System Restored
PNG Power Ltd has fully restored power supply from the Ramu Hydropower Station into Lae, Madang and the Highlands Region as of yesterday afternoon at 4.00pm.
Power supply from Ramu was affected in the last week due to issues relating to transmission line and generator faults. The Ramu System was therefore run on split supply over last week while teams were working on restoring and rectifying the faults.
Madang was running on its standby generators which required load shedding during the Ramu Outage.
Lae experienced issues due to a fault on the transmission lines and its generation was affected due to issues with the Lae Gas Turbine. The Highlands Region was supplied by Pauanda and Mt Hagen through Dobel Power Station gensets.
There is currently work that is been undertaken whereby a plan is being put together to address reliability issues in Lae and on the Ramu System.
As mentioned recently in a recent press release, the set-up of the protection system in place to trip components when there is a fault or disturbance appears to require significant review with new settings modeled and implemented.
In addition, the generator refurbishment projects started in 2014 will require focus in 2018. There has been a focus on defect repair on the main transmission lines over the past year or so and this need to be completed in 2018 as well. We are developing a coordinated program across all these projects and initiatives to ensure we minimise and the eliminate delays.
I would like to specifically thank the teams who have worked hard behind the scenes to fully restore power supply and also thank you the customers for your understanding during the outages.
Carolyn Blacklock, Acting Managing Director
