MP Giorgi Sharashidze from the party ‘Gakharia for Georgia’ said the third nationwide electricity outage and the statement by the Georgian State Electrosystem raise questions about why, if the responsible authorities knew about the risk of a complete system shutdown, appropriate measures were not taken and the public was not informed in advance. Sharashidze said the real reason behind the outage may be so serious that the authorities prefer admitting any other fault rather than revealing the actual cause.
“After the third nationwide electricity outage, the statement by the Georgian State Electrosystem and later comments by a member of the Georgian National Energy and Water Supply Regulatory Commission, saying that the blackout was caused by planned testing of Enguri HPP units and that the risk of a complete system shutdown was known in advance, raise even more questions about what is really happening in Georgia’s electricity system,” said Giorgi Sharashidze.
“Every citizen has a simple question, especially those who had to walk through darkened metro tunnels — if the responsible authorities knew about the possibility of a complete system shutdown, why were no appropriate measures taken and why was the public not informed in advance? They knew this question would arise, but most likely the real reason is so serious that they prefer admitting any other fault rather than revealing the actual cause.”
Electricity was cut off across Georgia for the third time yesterday. Metro services were also suspended. The Georgian State Electrosystem said that after the system failures on July 24–25, certain works were being carried out at Enguri HPP. According to the company, testing the station’s equipment required operating the electricity system in an isolated mode and at frequencies different from the nominal level, which resulted in a temporary nationwide power outage.
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