Probe committee blames human error for last week’s power failure 

The 9-member committee appointed to probe into the nationwide blackout in Sri Lanka on August 17 has put the entire blame on an electrical superintendent‘s mistake during maintenance work at the Kerawalapitiya grid sub-station. 

According to findings of the committee headed by Additional Secretary to the Ministry of Power Hemantha Samarakoon, disruption to the equilibrium of this grid sub-station system was the cause for the failure of Norochcholai power plant.

Sri Lanka was left without power on August 17 in an over 7-hour outage following a failure at this electricity facility.

The report compiled by the committee has made recommendations on measures that should be taken to prevent the re-occurrence of such power failures resulting in countrywide blackouts in the future.

The final report of the committee was to be submitted to the cabinet of ministers today (August 26), Ceylon Electricity Board sources said.

However a report submitted to the committee by the CEB Technological Engineers and Superintendent Union revealed that the island-wide shut down in power was due to a technical fault at the Kerawalapitiya Sub Station and failure to deploy experienced staff to maintain it. 

The technical fault at the Kerawalapitiya Sub Station and the breakdown at the Norochcholai Power Plant are two separate incidents, the report divulged.

Maintenance at the substation is purely based on the technical know-how and experience of the superintendents and other officers and not according to any approved procedure, the report highlighted.

According to the report, the superintendents and other officials manning the power plants and substations have not been given proper training although engineers are provided with local and overseas training it added. 

This factor has been neglected by the CEB’s top administration in the past and present, the report revealed while questioning as to why five security systems between the Kerawalapitiya sub-station and the Norochcholai power plant had failed to operate.

The report brings to the notice of authorities the delays in installing generators that were purchased to power the equipment that cools down generators at the Norochcholai power plant.

The union pointed out that although a state-of-the-art operations centre for the national grid was set up, the staff stationed at the centre lack proper experience. It added that experienced officers were removed from the operations centre and reassigned to other office duties.(Bandula)