Power supply disruptions end

 ELECTRICITY supply in East New Britain has been restored after seven weeks of disruptions following the closure of the Warongoi Hydro Power station last month.

The station was forced to close on Dec 14 after an unexpected flood. 

An open outlet flooded the power house and the closure of the station forced Ulagunan station to cater for the province. 

PNG Power said that should not have happened and was why there had been an inconsistent supply in the province in the past seven weeks and which lead to complaints through the media, social media and to the authorities.

The company said the Warongoi Hydro Power Station had two units and both were shut down to allow repairs after the flood.  

Both units and other machines were damaged by flood waters.

The Ulagunan Power Station, which runs on diesel, has been an extremely expensive exercise for PPL as it used 30,000 litres of fuel daily to provide power for the province in the past seven weeks. 

It is understood that Ulagunan runs five units but because of the heavy load, one of the machines broke down last Thursday, disrupting power until midnight. 

The four units were only able to produce 4.7 megawatts, far below the  9.8 megawatts the province needs.

Company staff worked over the weeks; with most of them had being away from their families for weeks, including the festive season, to restore Warongoi. 

They finally restored Warongoi unit one last Friday, reducing the load on Ulagunan and restoring electricity supply in the province. 

PPL acting general manager operations and maintenance Linus Melivala thanked the team in Kokopo for their work and business houses for taking part in resolving the problem.