At 3:53am (Friday) the Sirinumu Landowners unlawfully trespassed all Rouna Power Stations and shut down the operations of PNG Power. Demands made by the Landowners are to the State and has no relation to PNG Power Ltd. Attempts made by Senior Management to calmly resolve the matter have been rejected by the Landowners. The Landowners have also shut down the water valves at the Main Intake gate and upstream gate affecting water supply to Mt Eriama Treatment Plant and Eda Ranu.
Ipak Giru is the first local woman to hold the position as a Center Manager in the history of PNG Power. She looks after operations at Yonki Township, which is the core of Ramu Grid. Ipak started her career with ELCOM (PNG Power) in November 1993 as a clerk typist.
PNG Power Limited is a State-Owned Enterprise as defined in the Kumul Consolidated Holdings Act and is incorporated under the Companies Act 1997. Like all legal entities, the Board of Directors set the company’s policies, strategies and vision. When the current PNG Power Board came into office early last year, it embarked on a plan to turn the company around. In order to do that, my Board had to start with the realignment of business under the core functions of power generation, transmission/distribution and retailing with corresponding business units established forthwith to ensure PNG Power fulfills its obligation to provide efficient, reliable and affordable electricity to its customers.
At 2.29pm yesterday, a system wide blackout occurred and was not fully restored until late evening. While the blackout was not caused by PNG Power, we sincerely apologise for the extended time it took to reinstate power supply and the obvious inconvenience caused to families and businesses. The unexpected interruption to supply on New Year’s Day was caused by a unique set of circumstances with several faults on the Transmission lines between power stations and substations which tripped generators at all power stations. In addition, the extreme situation of all Transmission lines being unavailable for a number of hours meant there were no options available for a number of hours. The eventual solution only made possible by diverting around normal transmission lines making the balance between voltage and frequency difficult to achieve stability.
Port Moresby has experienced several outages over the last two weeks of which two where system-wide. The system outages were mainly caused by aging infrastructure, system tests and factors outside PNG Power control such as branches falling onto power lines. PNG Power has undertaken thorough investigations on the causes of these outages and our responses to rectify them.
A new public-private partnership with the goal of generating and distributing power in the Hela Province has been formed. ExxonMobil PNG, operator of PNG LNG Project and PNG Power will undertake a joint feasibility study in 2019 to assess the viability to provide power to the province. The two entities have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to commence a study of the cost and technical specifications required to safely transmit electricity generated at Hides Gas Conditioning Plant (HGCP) to the local community through PNG Power. ExxonMobil PNG, as operator of PNG LNG will look at delivering up to 5 MW of power from the HGCP to a grid owned and managed by PNG Power in the Hela Province.
PNG Power would like to clarify various reports in the media that the recent announcement of the company restructure was illegal and did not get prior approval from its main Shareholder, Kumul Consolidated Holdings Limited (KCHL). As the chairman of PNG Power, I want to clearly state that the restructure is legal and all due process was followed before approval was done.
PNG Power has partnered with an Independent Supplier in JYVX Limited under its Jive Marketing online platform to extend accessibility for customers to purchase Easipay prepaid units across PPL network in PNG. The commercial contract was officially signed last month to have Jive Marketing begin vending Easipay units out to the customers. PNG Power took the opportunity to take onboard a local SME entrepreneur in Jaive Smare to develop such a highly sophisticated online application to vend Easipay and reach out more to the community through the web based application.
PNG Power is undergoing an organisational restructure that is designed to meet its strategic priorities in providing accessible, reliable and affordable electricity services to Papua New Guineans. The restructure which was approved by the PNG Power Board for implementation is based on staff feedback that PNG Power is not optimally organized and our work is made harder due to the current structure. In order to achieve our corporate goals of rapid electrification, reliability and affordability, our organization needs to be structured to leverage our skills and strengths, focus on our customers and be able to manage across vast distances.
The PNG Power Limited Training College (PPLTC) was accredited on June 5, 2018 by the PNG National Apprentice Trade Testing Board to offer Electrical Level 3 Training courses. This makes PNG Power one of the only two Training providers with the required facilities in the country able to offer this course. Manager Organisational Development, Mr Andrew Kavanamur said the accreditation to run Electrical Level 3 trainings at PNG Power TC was a milestone achievement for the organizations as it would help PNG Power to train its own Electrical Fitter Mechanics in house, thus, reducing training costs and duration it takes to complete the trade training.
