The Messenger, Georgia
Dec 15 2004
Tbilisi’s shuki shortage
A combination of problems causes city-wide blackout, and industry
spokesman warns of similar problems to come
By Keti Sikharulidze and James Phillips
Tbilisi experienced a city-wide blackout on Tuesday, with important
facilities including the metro, airport, and hospitals all losing
light for several hours during the evening.
The blackout was due to the loss of the Aragvi 220 kilovolt
transmission line into Tbilisi, which as Director General of the
Georgian State Electrosystem Joe Corbett told The Messenger, was the
result of a number of problems.
Corbett explained that a joint on the Aragvi line blew as a result of
overloading, which was itself due to the disconnection on Sunday
morning of one of the two automatic transformer boxes, ‘AT 4’ at
Gardabani, which transfer electricity from the high voltage 500 KV
lines across Georgia to the 220 KV line, owing to a defect.
“When we lose a transformer we have no backup,” Corbett says, adding
that because of a lack of maintenance over the last fourteen years,
the Aragvi line sometimes struggles to cope with levels of
electricity that theoretically it should have no problem with, as was
the case on Monday.
The autotransformer was reconnected on Tuesday evening, although PR
officer of the Ministry of Energy Teona Doliashvili notes that the
transformer will be disconnected again this weekend for scheduled
testing.
In the meantime, Tbilisi should receive a normal electricity service,
at least until another fault appears, but the GSE General Director
says that this is unlikely to be long, because the electricity system
is in such a bad state of repair, and the money to rehabilitate the
system is not available. “Georgia wants a transmission system that it
is not willing to pay for,” he complains.
Corbett says that the loss of the Aragvi line was just one of a
multitude of inter-related problems faced by Georgia’s electricity
system over the weekend.
Imports of electricity from Armenia were suspended until Sunday
evening owing to a fault on the Alaverdi line, on the Armenian side.
For several days until Sunday night, one of the units at the Enguri
hydroelectric power station was disconnected owing to another
breakdown.
There were also problems over the weekend with the high voltage
Imereti and Kavkazioni lines which transmit electricity from Enguri
and Russia.
The combination of all of these problems meant that even more
electricity had to be transferred to Tbilisi along the Aragvi line,
resulting in the city-wide blackout on Monday.
Despite the problems, however, Deputy Energy Minister Aleksandre
Khetaguri told Imedi he believes that “the emergency situation will
become better in the near future and Tbilisi will receive the same
energy once the AT 4 transformer has been repaired.”
The lack of electricity, meanwhile, has led to twice as much gas
being consumed as usual, causing a drop in pressure in the gas
system.