Singapore experiences blackouts as Indonesian gas stops
Singapore experiences blackouts as Indonesian gas stops
Reuters, Singapore
Parts of Singapore suffered rare electricity black outs on Monday when a natural gas supply from Indonesia suddenly cut off, tripping seven of nine gas-fired generating plants on the island-state, the government said.
Singapore's last major blackout was in 1992, when a large power station caught fire.
The island state's Energy Market Authority (EMA) said the power supply was hit on Monday after an emergency valve along the Indonesia-Singapore gas pipeline was shut off at about 9:43 a.m. (8:43 a.m. Jakarta time), cutting the gas supply from the Natunas gas fields.
Several residential areas and industrial estates were affected between 10:00 a.m. and 11:30 a.m.
The valve, owned and operated by Indonesian state oil and gas firm Pertamina/WNTS, was reopened at 10:10 a.m.
Gas-fired plants make up 40 percent of Singapore's electricity generating capacity, while the remaining generators are powered by oil, the EMA said.
EMA chief executive Khoo Chin Hean said the black outs came as a result of seven power generators failing at once when the gas supply was suddenly cut.
"We do not design a system and expect seven of them to trip out all at once," he told a news conference.
SembCorp Gas, a subsidiary of SembCorp Industries [SCIL.SI] which owns the receiving station for the gas supply in Singapore, said a preliminary investigation pointed to an accidental closure of a key valve on the pipeline.
EMA's Khoo said he did not rule out the likelihood of human error in causing the problem. "If it is activated in a way that was not warranted... we have to fix that."
SembGas said in a statement it would report the findings of its investigation into the cause of the cut-off by Friday.
Singapore's power demands range between 3,000 megawatts and 5,000 megawatts at any point in time. Two gas-fired plants using gas piped in from Malaysia were unaffected.
The EMA said it kept reserves to enable the largest generating plant on the island to operate in case of failure at other sites, but the tripping of seven plants at once caused too much of a shortfall.