Power outage in Hong Kong’s Diamond Hill caused by voltage dip due to extreme weather, power giant says (2024)

A power outage at a residential estate in Diamond Hill in the early hours of Sunday was caused by a voltage dip under extreme weather, the city’s power giant has said.

Fung Chuen Court in Diamond Hill, home to over 600 households, experienced a power outage that lasted over an hour early on Sunday morning, local media outlets reported. Additionally, residents living in Ho Man Tin and Tsing Yi also reported unstable voltage.

It was the second such power outage in the space of two weeks. On June 12, thousands of Wong Tai Sin households were plunged into darkness.

Joseph Law, the managing director of CLP Power, one of the city’s two major energy suppliers, apologised for both incidents in a statement issued on Sunday.

The company said in separate statement on Sunday that an overhead power supply system connecting Yuen Long and Shenzhen had experienced “a brief voltage dip” at around 2.47 am Sunday, when a thunderstorm warning was in force.

“It is suspected that the 400kV overhead power supply system might have been impacted by the unstable weather conditions,” the company said.

Law said the giant’s power system faced increasing challenges under extreme weather.

“We all know that extreme weather conditions are becoming more and more frequent, with the increase of thunderstorms and heavy rain, and temperatures rising constantly. These situations pose an increasing challenge to our power system,” Law said in Chinese, adding that CLP Power would adopt various measures to reduce the impact of extreme weather on the city’s energy systems.

The executive added that the number of power outage incidents over the past six months remained almost the same compared to the same period last year.

12,000 incidents in 2 years

Regarding Sunday’s power outage, the Electrical and Mechanical Services Department (EMSD) has urged the CLP Power to submit a detailed report presenting the cause of the incident and any improvement plan in four weeks.

Separately, the Environment and Ecology Bureausaid in a statement issued on Sunday that before the report is completed, CLP Power should try to enhance the capability of power supply system, particularly the lightning protection capability of 400 kV overhead line towers.

Following the power outage in Wong Tai Sai, Tse Chin-wan, the environment and ecology chief, met executives of the CLP power on June 13, ordering the power giant to review all the incidents over the past three years.

Upon Tse’s request, CLP will hire an independent consultant to conduct a re-examination of all voltage dips and power supply interruption incidents that occurred in the past three years.

The review must be completed within 12 months, with a report submitted to the government.

In response to a lawmaker’s questions, the government revealed that there had been 12,504 incidents linked to CLP Power from 2019 to 2022, while another power giant Hong Kong Electric Company, was connected to 729 incidents in the same period.

CLP Power covers Kowloon, the New Territories, and most outlying islands, including Lantau Island, Cheung Chau, while Hong Kong Electric Company provides power supply to Hong Kong Island, Ap Lei Chau, Lamma Island and some other islands.

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