News & Updates

KUCHING

18 FEBRUARY 2022

Major transmission line connection works to progress the commissioning of the new 500/275/132KV Tondong substation will continue up till March.

These critical works to connect the new substation with the Mambong-Matang transmission lines require one of the two circuits to come offline temporarily leaving only one line in operation throughout the works. This increases the risk of supply interruptions when tripping occurs.

The recent supply interruptions on Thursday night and on Friday morning experienced in parts of Kuching were due to the ongoing connection works which affected areas that are receiving supply from the Mambong-Matang line including a section of Petra Jaya, Matang and Batu Kawa. The interruptions lasted around 30mins before progressive supply restoration began.

Prior to commencing the connection works, Sarawak Energy has put in place contingency plans and this has helped mitigate and reduced the duration of these interruptions.

James Ung, Sarawak Energy Group Chief Operating Officer, said, “We would like to assure our customers that our technical teams are working to complete the connection works as fast as possible to get Tondong substation safely commissioned. We apologise for the inconvenience caused to our customers during the recent outages and thank them for their patience and understanding as we progress works to provide them with a more reliable supply system.

“We will continue to monitor the performance of the supply lines and we also have our operations team on standby to ensure system recovery in the shortest time possible if tripping occurs.”

Sarawak Energy has issued a notice on the scheduled shutdowns of the Mambong-Matang transmission lines which will be done in two phases- from 7 February to 18 February 2022 and from 21 February to 4 March 2022, subject to weather conditions. During the shutdowns, only one of two circuits will be in operation.

Once completed, the new Tondong substation which forms an integral part of the 500KV transmission backbone project will provide the much needed reinforcement for Kuching city’s supply system and improve supply reliability.

The facility also connects the new 500KV circuits to the existing 275KV main State Grid via the Mambong-Matang lines, to meet growing local electricity demand in the rapidly growing area and accommodate future capacity growth at Tondong substation.

Members of the public can contact Sarawak Energy Customer Care Centre at 1300-88-3111, or utilise Sarawak Energy mobile app SEBcares to obtain the latest updates on the connection works and to report outages to assist in speedy restoration of electricity supply.