Blackouts hit Korea nationwide
Unseasonal heat wave, plant maintenance blamed for unprecedented power cuts
By Kim Tae-gyu
Rolling power outages occurred in Seoul and other areas Thursday, cutting off electricity to at least 1.62 million households, stranding people n elevators, causing accidents after traffic lights failed, threatening patients at hospitals and disrupting operations at factories.
The blackouts ― unprecedented in scale in peacetime ― were caused by a failure of the state-run Korea Electric Power Corp. (KEPCO) to prepare for a surge in electricity use triggered by the ongoing late heat wave, and it carrying out maintenance at power plants.
KEPCO made the situation worse by turning off the electrical supply arbitrarily without warning residents of areas to be affected, adding to the confusion. KEPCO is being run by an acting CEO after Kim Ssang-soo quit before his term was up.
Officials at KEPCO and its supervisor, the Ministry of Knowledge Economy (MKE), said that supply capacity had been moderated as a summer is coming to an end and demand was tapering off, not expecting a surge in use.
The rolling blackouts took place for 30 minutes in each region, according to the ministry. KEPCO said power services returned to normal as of 7:56 p.m.
``We expected that the peak demand for electricity would be around 64 million kilowatts but the actual figure jumped to 67.26 million kilowatts because of the heat wave, while the power reserve fell below 4 million kilowatts,’’ MKE director Kim Do-gyun said.
``We employed a variety of measures to keep the reserve above 4 million kilowatts, but to little avail. In order to prevent a possible blackout of the entire nation, we had no choice but to follow guidelines limiting power to specific regions in rotation, for the first time.’’
Kim contended that only households, small-sized apartments and commercial facilities without elevators were affected by the step, which KEPCO is allowed to take without prior notice.
Yet, numerous reports were filed throughout Thursday afternoon and evening that people were stuck in elevators and large-sized office buildings including retail chains and department stores and even industrial complexes suffered power failures.
A host of traffic signs failed prompting the police to issue an alert and cell phones did not work in some regions.
``As electricity usage goes down in September, 23 power stations including a couple of nuclear reactors are currently undergoing maintenance,’’ MKE Deputy Minister Jeong Jae-hoon said.
``We failed to make a correct prediction on power demand as well as to announce the power limit in advance. We feel responsibility for that along with KEPCO.’’
Beginning Friday, the MKE plans to operate some of the 23 power stations in question whose combined capacity amounts to 8.34 million kilowatts. However, it remains to be seen whether the country will be able to meet the increasing power demand amid the ongoing heat wave.
Maximum temperatures have topped 30 degrees Celsius of late, several degrees higher than average. The trend is projected to continue for the time being according to the Korea Meteorological Administration.
Almost all areas including Seoul and its vicinity faced power outages but major companies Samsung Electronics, Hyundai Motor and POSCO did not experience any production disruption since they are equipped with their own emergency power generators.
In the aftermath of the power cut, KEPCO came under fire for not making enough investments. The company has experienced snowballing deficits over the past few years, amounting to trillions of won.
Its leadership vacancy is also on the lips of the watchers ― former President Kim Ssang-su resigned late August and incoming CEO Kim Joong-kyum is poised to take charge of the utility next week if he wins the approval of shareholders today.