BPC CEO says too expensive to put units and power lines underground despite Snow damage

The recent unprecedented snowfall, which no one was expecting in decades, disrupted the power supplies in a number of dzongkhags across the country and the BPC front-liners were faced with daunting tasks of restoring power lines, poles and insulators in treacherous locations. The affected areas were mostly from Paro, Thimphu, Bumthang, Haa, Wangdue, Trongsa, Punakha, Tsirang and Pemagatshel.

Sonam Tobjey, the CEO of Bhutan Power Corporation said that during heavy snowfall, the power disruption was mainly caused by the impact of breaking tree and branches which resulted in damage of pin splinters, transformers, insulators and power lines and in case of lower altitude areas in Haa and Trongsa the damage was caused by bamboo groves.

“We have finished restoring the power in most locations albeit some locations like Gasa and few others in which there are still some works that need to be done,” said the CEO.

This interviews was on friday. The CEO also said that such disasters like heavy snowfall due to climate change are unforeseen and unpredictable and no amount of preparations could impede the damages from a calamity but there were a few things the BPC staff could do to minimize the damages like clearing trees along the power corridors and increasing corridors which the BPC is already doing.

“For the time being this doesn’t seem feasible as it will lead to significant deforestation but on the other hand it will also mitigate the destruction caused by the falling trees and branches. Other alternatives could be putting the power lines and substations underground but sadly that is simply impossible due to extreme cost that will be incurred. The destruction was done mostly to the distribution lines and not transmission lines but even just putting the distribution lines underground is going to be very cost-intensive to the point it will be simply impractical. Maybe for cities like Thimphu it might be implemented but elsewhere don’t get your hopes up,” said Sonam Tobjey.

According to him, the power disruptions are not unusual things and besides natural disasters like monsoon, the man-made factors like construction, excavation etc were also found to be disrupting the power supplies.

Regarding the update, as of friday the power supply in rest of the Lhuntse gewogs except Dungkar gewog and Ney village had been normalized. Line restoration at Chanachen village under Tsimalakha was completed with the help of the locals while work at Gatena gewog was to be continued the next day. In Haa, power supply to Aaringkha has been restored and a new transformer to replace the damaged one has been transported from the Reringkha road point.

 In Mongar the supply to Pangtoe village and Tshanphu Drubkhang were normalized and restoration almost completed. Both Dotey power and Paro Lamgong has been restored after necessary rectification. The supply has been normalized in Trongsa and Trashigang. The power restoration seems to be almost complete for most of the other affected dzongkhags.

“Our people cannot take the vehicles at times and they have to walk on foot which delays the restoration process especially when there is phenomenon like heavy snowfall. The main problem isn’t the restoration itself, but reaching the affected area/zone. The extent of damage to the infrastructure also determines the time taken to fix the power. For example, damage to one insulator doesn’t take long to fix but damage to few/multiple poles takes longer,” said the CEO.

There was much public appreciation on social media for BPC’s efforts to fix the lines.