End to power cuts

PNG Power Limited has assured its customers that there will be no disruptions to electricity supply during the festive season, and beyond.
The assurance came from chief executive officer Douglas Mageo after the company paid the K50 million it owed Puma Energy to restore its regular supply of fuel.
PNG Power had been waiting for some time for the Government to pay the K50m, forcing the power supplier to implement load-shedding around Port Moresby daily.
Mageo said in statement since they now had “normalised” their payment terms with Puma Energy, they were getting the supply of fuel they needed.
It means that load-shedding will be discontinued.
Mageo warned, however that in cases of outages caused by “accidents or severe weather conditions”, PNG Power would try to quickly restore power supply.
He also said they would be moving away from “100 per cent exposure to diesel” next year.
“We will be moving away from 100 per cent exposure to diesel in Port Moresby and the other centres as well,” Mageo said in a statement.
Mageo said the new NiuPower gas plant had also started supplying 10 megawaltz to the Port Moresby grid from Nov 28.
This is expected to increase to 58 mw next year, with the commissioning of the 80mw transmission line.
“This means PNG Power will not use diesel to generate power in Port Moresby,” Mageo said.
“It will happen in other centres as well. The Ramu grid will be fully hydro-powered by the middle of 2020, followed by the Samarai Solar grid in Milne Bay, Divune hydropower plant in Oro and the refurbished Warangoi hydropower plant in East New Britain under PNG Power’s least cost generation path,” he said.
The hydropower capacity at Ru Creek in Kimbe and Lake Hargy in Bialla have been restored.