Outages Continue For 3rd Day

Bandar Seri Begawan - With the current unstable electricity supply situation, the Department of Electrical Services (DES) has resorted to switching off street lightings in several areas to compensate the heavy load on the grid.

According to DES, a rainy day and a hot day can have a 40-megawatt difference in power usage which is roughly the output of two gas turbines due to the amount of electrical appliances used, especially air conditioners.

For this reason, the DES appeals to the pubic to reduce electricity consumption at their homes and to conserve energy during these times, and to especially reduce electrical wastage such as leaving their air conditioners switched on even when not at home.

The country in the past three days has been experiencing blackouts in the evening with a massive one affecting areas in the Brunei-Muara, Tutong and Belait Districts on Monday night.

On Tuesday night, some parts of Brunei-Muara were without power for nearly four hours.

Last night, several areas in Belait and Brunei-Muara Districts were again affected by power outage. Areas in Anggerek Desa, Kg Pulaie, Kg Menglait, Kumbang Pasang and also Rimba residential areas reportedly experienced power cuts.

"We can't control our customers, but the best we can do to compensate is to control the streetlights, but even that is just a very small percentage," explained the engineers. "Ten per cent reduction in domestic consumption would be a very big help and we won't have to exercise load shedding, which is an engineered electrical power outage in order to prevent a total blackout.

"When a machine trips we'll just have to get it back up but it's not easy because anything can fail when a machine trips. If any of the parts fail, then we need to replace those parts and that's what usually takes time.

"A tripped machine is considered as an abnormal shut down and when that happens, it tends to create other problems.

"For a normal shutdown needs to be done slowly according to the stages so that proper cooling' down takes place. But the tripping of the machine is the last thing that you want to happen because it is not safe for the machine because it causes thermal stress to its mechanical parts.

"Due to the first incident, we tried to get back all the machines up but on the second day we only managed to bring up several of them because it takes time to bring up the machine due to some problems caused by the first incident. That's why we had shortage of power supply," explained the DES.

The Borneo Bulletin hotline received several complaints from the affected areas with many expressing their anger as the blackouts have hit then for three days in a row.

"The power cut is unacceptable," said a resident from Rimba who told the Bulletin that it was the third night they have experienced it.

Another caller meanwhile proposed that the DES utilise the Short Messaging System or SMS and send everyone advance warnings about possible power cuts.

On Tuesday, the DES stated that the power failure was due to the shut downs of its gas turbine machines at the Gadong 1, Gadong 2 and Bukit Panggal generators because of "technical problems experienced within the fuel control systems".

According to the DES spokesperson, the continuing outages are due to the "system, which is still normalising its pressure". As a temporary measure, several streetlights on several roads were switched off by the DES to reduce load on the grid.

Engineers, meanwhile, have been put on continuous standby according to the DES, to anticipate further power outages.

The current hot weather experienced in the country is also not helping the situation as many houses are having their air-conditioners and other electrical appliances continuously switched on.--Courtesy Of Borneo Bulletin

Comments (10)

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written by anna , October 01, 2009

I appreciate the explanation from DES. Sometime things happen for a reason and we cant control it. Although i couldnt sleep that night because it was veryyy HOT, the public just needs to be patient, (org dulu2 nada electricity, they got used to it) Now that we have electricity, We should help reduce the usage by turning off the power of appliances at home when not used. To conserve is the best way now.

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blaming others?
written by Elmos , October 01, 2009

If I read it correctly, the authorities are 'blaming' consumers for it, claiming heavy load and that they use too much?? Hey, we pay electricity bills. You people in the department should know the approximate upper bracket usage by consumers and adjust accordingly. You know its a heavy commercial, industrial & residential areas, so when the capacity reach say 85% you should have requested for more turbines to be installed. It appears you people didn't do the job. I even heard that Brunei has no expertise on fixing this and when stuff like this occur the only solution is to wait for some foreign engineers come and get things done.

I think we can forget the vision for industrialization or commercial boom. It is impractical. Brunei will go total blackout if that happened. Sad but true, the country cannot grow fast, it can only watch it neighbors booming with envy.

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Open your eyes
written by bruranter , October 01, 2009

Bruneians negligence and overindulgence with the cheap easy energy and facilities the government has provided has finally come and slapped us back in the face.

Time for a change...

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written by anyone , October 01, 2009

AGAIN!!.. you said that u cant control ur customer... and is that the only thing u can do ?? why don't think another way ?? think outside the box.... one of the best way is to build another generator to act as a back up... if u say money is a problem, it is a lame reason.... where is the government money ?? they use the money to build more houses... isn't that also increase power usage ?? whose to blame here ? be more compromise..... if u build more houses, the build more generators...

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written by Trollface , October 01, 2009

"the DES appeals to the pubic to reduce electricity consumption at their homes and to conserve energy during these times"

No need to appeal lah. Just rise up the price for electricity, people will eventually conserve energy.

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Changing Consumption Habits
written by Hermes , October 01, 2009

The DES can easily control consumers. All they need to do is invert the charging scale. They could set a threshold of say 250 units a month and devise a new scale so that at that level of consumption, the cost would be the same as under the present scale. Consumption under that threshold would go down in cost, and consumption over that would go up. Thus, over a certain limit, additional units would cost 25c a unit rather than 5c a unit.

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controlling Consumption
written by Hermes , October 01, 2009

It is very easy to control consumption. All the DES needs to do is invert the price table. They could set a threshold of say 200 to 250 units a month, and price the new scale so the cost of this number of units is the same as under the present scale.

Consumption under this threshold would go down in price, and consumption above it would go up. So, for example, the first 50 units might cost 5c per unit, but the top end consumption would be charged at 20 to 25c per unit.

That would reduce consumption rather quickly.

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written by JudgeDred , October 01, 2009

Just increase the price and people will start to conserve energy. Biasa ler org Brunei ani. Baru cikit2 pun riuh sekampong.Typical typical......

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Blaming game
written by Man in the Mirror , October 01, 2009

Reduce consumption and yet the number of houses are increasing at a phenomenal rate? It sounds like the DES are trying to play the blame game. Though I applaud their effort to rectify the problems, but if they want to blame, it should be on themselves. Heard the problem was the result of poor maintenance and their reluctance to replace end-of-life parts. Maybe they should look closer to home first rather than the consumers.

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written by anonymous , October 02, 2009

Anna, I agree with you about the statement, "org dulu2 nada electricity, they got used to it". Well, from stories and tales from my grandparents and parents, they said that back then it was much cooler in Brunei, so adapting to no electricity was much more easier (not to forget they weren't exposed to electricity that much back then), maybe global warming is the cause?? Brunei is becoming much hotter, we use electricity (mun kamu kan belurus: electricity from oil and gas) , we'll contribute to global warming, hence, increasing the heat, making it harder for us to sleep and not to forget the presence of annoying mosquitoes. GLOBAL WARMING people!!! Look around us, Brunei and other countries are becoming hotter, Philippines is suffering from typhoons, etc. So reduce Global Warming, the earth will become cooler and easier to sleep in. And the useage of fireworks?? FYI it also contributes to global warming too and also noise pollution. Therefore, noise released will cause annoyance towards nearby neighbours, causing them a hard time to sleep.

And the reluctance of people to change is a major problem in Brunei. If they are frustrated about something, don't blame other people, blaming is just a waste of energy ( I'm not saying we should blame ourselves). To achieve something, we should not wait for other people (most likely higher autorities) to do something, we should take action to obtain a reaction that would satisfy ourselves. Don't rely on other people all the time. Waiting for them will take a long time. We could also help each other to overcome a certain problem. While waiting for the higher autorities to do something, we should try to change our habits to make sure this dosen't happen again (for example: use less lights, try to use fans instead of aircons, try using a laptop instead of a desktop cause it uses less amount of energy, use energy-efficient products). By doing this we can overcome a problem much more faster.

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