Kota Kinabalu: MP Dr Hiew King Cheu described as "very sertious" the power outage which affected almost all of Sabah lasting up to six hours in his constituency from 6.30pm.He said it not only caused a lot of inconvenience to consumers but also great losses to businesses and that the explanation given by Sabah Electricity Sdn Bhd (SESB) was unacceptable.
"My phone kept ringing for three hours with complaints from all over Sabah," he said, Monday. None of the SESB personnel could be contacted and he only managed to talk to SESB today for more details.
He said he could not comprehend how a collapsed pylon could cause a state-wide blackout due to its metal strut being stolen. "This is not normal and it shows our power management by SESB and the State Government is highly inefficient."
He questioned the reasons for the long hours of blackout and the fact that the whole system failed in spite of the Sabah power grid boasting the latest technology.
"It should be equipped with fail-safe system to cut off or to link up in case of power generator failure happening in certain areas," he said.
In this case, if the power generator or the line linking or supplying to the State grid failed, there should be an immediate cut off from the main grid and thus not affect the whole system in supplying power to other areas.
"There must be something seriously wrong in the system technically or there is a design fault. Therefore, the collapsed tower cannot be the sole reason for the total blackout," he added.
According to him, it was also important to note that Tawau, Sandakan and other towns in Sabah are having their own power generators which could be immediately isolated or cut off from the main grid in order to continue the supply of power to the main town.
"This can be easily executed through computerised control.
Furthermore, are our SESB and its privatised independent power producers (IPP) not generating enough power in the whole State?" he asked.
Hiew said that because the total required power consumption is greater than the power produced by the generator plants, incidences of over loading, power shedding and power cut were rampant.
"What happens when one of the power plants breaks down?
This will definitely create a more critical stage," he said.
