It Was Maintenance that Forced Power Outage

Home Archived It Was Maintenance that Forced Power Outage

By Michael Liswaniso OPUWO Electricity was finally restored in Kunene’s hub of Opuwo late Sunday afternoon, after more than 10 hours of power outage due to the annual line maintenance on the 66 kilovolts (KV) line from Opuwo to the Okangwati village in the Epupa constituency. The town was without power from 07h00 until 18h00. Opuwo’s electricity supply comes via the 66KV from the Ruacana hydro power station that can stimulate about 240 megawatts annually, depending on the Kunene River flow. Business for most traders was, however, not affected on Sunday due to the presence of diesel generators which provided backup for most retailers and other businesses. The marketing and communications officer of the Northern Regional Electricity Distributor Company (Nored), Frans Niikondo, said the maintenance was vital for the good flow of electricity, adding that it was jointly dealt with by Nored’s experienced staffers and those from the power utility of Namibia, NamPower. Nored issued a statement prior to the outage, warning that during the outage “the installations must be treated as live at all times, as NamPower may re-energize without prior notification”. Other places that endured several hours without electricity were Okondaumwe, Okorosave, Orumana, Alpha, Otjerunda, Okangwati and Ohandungu. “We just had to carry out the line maintenance for us to deliver proper services. We, however, regret any inconveniences that the outage caused to our valued customers in this regard,” noted Niikondo.