Pakistan's national grid collapses despite nuclear power

The vast majority of the population of Pakistan – about 220 million of 240 million people – was left without electricity on Monday after a “widespread breakdown in the power system,” according to the Ministry of Energy.

Pakistan is one of the world’s most densely populated countries and boasts a stable of six operable nuclear reactors in addition to a power grid largely supplied by coal and other fossil fuels. It experiences routine regional blackouts, particularly in more remote regions, but Monday’s total collapse presents a new level of severity in infrastructure malfunction. …

“There was a fluctuation in voltage and the systems were shut down one by one,” Energy Minister Khurram Dastagir said on Monday. In an interview with the South Asian outlet Geo News, Dastagir insisted that the malfunction was not “major,” but resulted in a catastrophic blackout because, in the winter months, Islamabad shuts down much of its energy capacity due to lack of demand.

“In winter, the demand for electricity reduces nationwide, hence, as an economic measure, we temporarily close down our power generation systems at night,” Dastgir said. “However, when the systems were turned on in the morning today, frequency variation and voltage fluctuation was observed in the south of the country […] somewhere between Dadu and Jamshoro […] because of which power generating units shut down one by one.”