MANAMA, 21 October 2006 — A malfunction in Bahrain’s newest power station left many parts of the country without power late Thursday.
The sporadic power outage, which hit during evening hours that were busy because of Ramadan and the weekend, affected many parts of the country, extending from Muharraq in the north to as far as Riffa, south of the capital.
Some parts of the affected areas had power, while others fell into complete darkness and traffic congestions, after traffic lights failed, with many people trying to leave the affected areas.
There were no reports of accidents, injuries or theft as a result of the limited blackouts, which lasted an hour, according to Bahraini officials.
Adnan Fakhro, assistant undersecretary for distribution and customer service at the Ministry of Electricity and Water, said the power outage was caused by a failure in the natural gas station at Al-Hidd Power Station in Muharraq.
The glitch caused power outages in various parts of the country after the station went out of service, he said.
“We were able to make up for the lost power output from our Riffa station, with power being restored to many parts within half an hour, before being fully restored within an hour,” Fakhro said.
He pointed out that the ministry was able to meet Bahrain’s electricity needs despite problem at the station, which he expected to be fully repaired within 24 hours.
Bahrain News Agency (BNA) quoted another ministry official indicating that the glitch had caused a loss of 500 megawatts in the system, which was at a load of 1,321 megawatts, which meant a loss of 38 percent of the power at the time. According to BNA, the electrical system was fully restored following the incident.
Al-Hidd station is owned by the private sector and has been operated by Al-Hidd Power Company since January.
British International Power, an independent power generation company with interests in 38 power stations in 18 countries around the world, together with partners Suez Energy International of France and Sumitomo Corporation of Japan, acquired the project at an estimated cost of $1.25 billion and signed a 20-year power and water purchase agreement for its output with the Ministry of Electricity and Water.
The agreement covers the output from the existing 910 megawatt combined cycle gas turbine and 30 million imperial gallons per day water desalination facility, together with the output from an expansion of the desalination plant to triple the capacity by the end of 2007.
The first 20 percent of the expanded capacity is expected to be in operation by April 2007.
In August 2004, Bahrain suffered a major blackout that left all of the country without power for more than 10 hours and millions of dollars in economic damage.
