KUALA LUMPUR (Oct 15): A lightning strike during a thunderstorm took out the country's largest gas-fired power plant in Melaka on Wednesday afternoon, causing temporary supply disruption in multiple states, a scale last seen three years ago.
The outage at Edra Melaka Power Plant, owned by independent power producer Edra Power Holdings Sdn Bhd, took out supply capacity equivalent to over 10% of Peninsular Malaysia's maximum electricity demand and resulted in blackouts across Kepong, Kuala Lumpur and Johor Bahru for more than an hour.
There was another power disruption in several other areas that is unrelated to the Edra plant shutdown, Tenaga Nasional Bhd (KL:TENAGA) said in a statement. But it did not identify these areas, or the cause of the outage, which has yet to be rectified at the time of writing.
Among locations in the city centre where outages were reported included the Mid Valley Megamall, The Exchange TRX, and Pavilion Damansara Heights.
Disruption at Edra's 2,242MW power plant in Melaka was detected at 4.12pm and fully rectified by 5.54pm, Tenaga said.
Works are ongoing to resolve the other outage, as soon as possible, it added.
"Tenaga deeply appreciates the patience of affected customers and apologizes for the inconvenience experienced. Our priority is to restore supply safely and as quickly as possible to ensure system stability and customer comfort," it said.
Edra Power also issued a statement, saying that lightning strike during heavy rain and thunderstorms caused a power trip and triggered an automatic shutdown at its power plant.
"Immediate recovery efforts were initiated to safely restore power generation and the plant has since resumed operations," it said.
"Preventive steps are also being reviewed to further minimise the risk of future disruptions," it added.
It assured the public "that every necessary measure is being taken to rectify the situation, safeguard system stability and restore reliable power supply at the earliest opportunity".
The combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT) Edra Melaka Power Plant came fully online in February 2022, and is the second largest in Southeast Asia.
Its capacity represents slightly over 10% of Peninsular Malaysia's maximum electricity demand of around 21,049MW.
Edra Power, part of the China General Nuclear Power Corporation, also operates a 1,400MW coal-fired power plant in Port Dickson; a 675MW gas plant in Kuala Langat, Selangor; and a 50MW solar farm in Kuala Ketil, Kedah, its website showed.
The last power outage that covered multiple states occurred in July 2022, when supply was cut to parts of Klang Valley, Penang, Johor and Pahang.
That outage was due to equipment damage within TNB's main power intake substations located in Yong Peng, Johor. Most of the affected areas saw supply restored in as early as 20 minutes, although the worst affected went more than two hours without electricity.