JEPCO deals with more than 3000 power outages

AMMAN — The Director General of the Jordan Electric Power Company , Hassan Abdullah, said that the company's call center received 42,000 calls, including 3,242 complaints about power outages since the snow storm hit the kingdom, according to Ammannet.اضافة اعلان

He said that JEPCO technical teams continue to work to solve numerous electrical issues promptly, but that the process has taken time as damaged utility poles needed to be replaced with new ones.

He added that unprecedented damages have occurred as a result of the heavy snow, gusty winds and fallen trees, which delayed repair work.

JEPCO’s transmission stations in Amman, Zarqa, Balqa and Madaba amount to 12,000 substations, 2,000 of which were affected by the weather conditions.  Abdullah said most of the stations have been repaired, and work was underway to repair the remaining malfunctions.

Abdullah said 2,163 employees and workers equipped with 483 vehicles, in addition to cranes and bulldozers have been dealing with the malfunctions.

On Friday, Chief Commissioner of the Energy and Minerals Regulatory Commission Hussein Laboun blamed JEPCO for the slow response to the outage problems and said that JEPCO will be held accountable under the provisions of its license and applied performance standards.

In response to a question by Jordan News if citizens affected by the outage would be compensated, EMRC said that it would be up to the judiciary to decide if the outage has resulted in any damage to property or to people’s health.

The EMRC said the priority at the present time is to restore electricity to all affected areas and households and to ensure that electric power is supplied and distributed according to license and law provisions.

A press statement issued by the Jordan Engineers Association (JEA) on Friday called for identifying the factors that led to the power outage in some areas during the snow storm, and ensuring that measures are in place to avoid any such recurrence. 

The JEA's deputy president, Fawzi Masad, said that the long power outages were clear evidence of shortcomings in the sector’s infrastructure, maintenance work and assessment of possible risks.

Masad added that untrimmed trees close to utility poles were key factors behind the damaged cables, urging better preparedness and faster response to such crisis.

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