The spokesman for the General Electricity Company of Libya (GECOL) Wiam Al-Tayeb, said that GECOL had not resorted to load shedding hours yet, but the power outages in some areas are due to repairing operations for field faults in the general grid.
Al-Tayeb's remarks came in a video statement from the main control room to clarify a number of important points related to the general situation as regards to the state of power usage during the summer peak.
"There's no load shedding despite the presence of massive usage in some transformers and stations. Some outages may occur as a result of emergency maintenance work for distribution networks, and they are repaired as soon as they are reported.” He added.
Al-Tayeb explained that GECOL had a surplus in production ranging between 500 and 700 megawatts as a result of the significant improvement in the production process, saying there was no justification for GECOL to resort to load shedding hours.
He said GECOL's technicians were carrying out maintenance operations under difficult and harsh conditions, especially the high temperature, to address some malfunctions, some of which were repaired immediately, and others needed a period of time, while a number of malfunctions needed stages of maintenance and days to complete.
Regarding the damage to the grid, Al-Tayeb explained that the network was suffering over the past period in light of the problems the country went through, adding that they had caused damage to the low and medium voltage networks, but there were plans in effect to address those problems.
With the increase in energy demand during the summer, GECOL's spokesman indicated that there were attempts to rebuild the network, after reaching stable stages of generation.
In the meantime, the Director of the General Administration of Medium Voltage, Yaseen Al-Kalawi, has said that GECOL plans to rebuild and develop the network, and meet the demand for energy in new residential areas as a result of population growth and expansion, indicating that there is a timetable for the reconstruction of the internal network within six to nine months. However, he has stressed that this depends on the speed of providing the necessary support and materials, and on work continuity.
