Reasons for the serious power cuts that affected the country on 6th and 7th January have finally been found. Measures to try and prevent such events from occurring again should soon be implemented ?some have already been - following recommendations by the South African company, Trans-Africa Projects (TAP). The latter has submitted its conclusions to the Central Electricity Board (CEB), the main one being that a high level of humidity was at the origin of the problem.

According to the South African firm, humidity had a bad effect on the paper used for oil insulation. Transformers at Nicolay Station are not well insulated. The CEB has already removed this type of transformers from there, which should prevent future problems.

However, the consequences of such problems could have been less far reaching had there not been an addition of several defects and shortcomings at the different stations.

First, Nicolay station is said to have ?internal? problems. The station did have some defects from the start regarding emergencies. This is why the explosion of transformers led to such blackouts throughout the country. Likewise, the effects could have been less important if energy production had worked properly at Belle-Vue. Protection systems should be better coordinated on the high-voltage network.

The report also states that there must have been a communication breakdown between the network controller at the control centre and the operator at Nicolay. As a result, many circuit breakers were closed and most probably an important one at Nicolay.

All these problems finally caused over-heating on the Nicolay-Wooton line, which itself was at the origin of the blackouts. The reason for the delay in restoring the electricity supply is again due to a lack of cooperation according to the South African company.

But the report outlined one important fact: there has been no negligence in terms of maintenance. The CEB staff must be relieved after this report and will now strive to implement the 14 recommendations made by TAP as quickly as possible.