While there is a growing international trend of some nefarious entities targeting a country’s critical infrastructure such as the national power grid, the Botswana Power Corporation (BPC) asserts that the nationwide blackout that halted business activity across Botswana in May was not the result of malevolent statecraft in the grey zone. This puts to rest rumours that an external entity was to blame for the power outage.
BPC marketing and communications manager, Dineo Seleke, confirmed that the power utility’s inquiry into the power outage that happened last month is now complete. “The Corporation has completed the investigation following the nationwide blackout of 08 May 2023,” she says. Although she indicated in clear cut terms that “the report is an internal BPC document,” she explained that the power blackout was triggered by a transient fault.
“The national power system blackout of 8th May 2023 at 00:13 hrs. was due to a transient fault on the Phokoje – Matimba 400kV Transmission Power Line which connects the Botswana grid to South Africa grid resulting in the said line tripping and the loss of Morupule A& B generators,” says Seleke.
Three days after the blackout on May 8th which occurred shortly after midnight the Corporation released a statement on May 11th stating that: “BPC’s statement to the effect that the power swings observed during the grid disturbance could have emanated from outside our grid, neither implies nor suggests that the cause of the power swings originated from the Eskom power grid”.
Energy specialist and University of Johannesburg Professor, Hartmut Winkler spoke to this publication and indicated that whenever sabotage occurs, “the responsible party almost invariably benefits from the breakdown, so investigations need to focus on those who potentially fall into that category.”
On what countries such as Botswana can do to if sabotage is suspected, Professor Winkler says all Morupule protocols and security mechanisms should be evaluated. “If there is a suspicion that some form of sabotage was involved (as you say, there is no evidence of that for now), then there should be a revision of all procedures and security mechanisms employed at Morupule, to see if anyone might be (a) delivering sub-standard coal, or (b) deliberately operating certain switches that would lead to the plant tripping,” he says.
Professor Winkler also noted that “shortcomings regarding these two points have been responsible for at least some outages in South Africa”.
Among other things, BPC’s marketing and communications manager indicated that “Government developed an Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) which guides generation expansion. The IRP considers the need for a sustainable energy mix which includes deployment of various primary energy resources namely coal, gas, solar and wind.”
Seleke made this assertion after this publication had inquired about whether BPC intends to develop an appropriate depth of mix to distribute risk given the overreliance on coal-fired power plants.
