SUBANG JAYA, April 8 — Electricity supply to residential areas affected by the Putra Heights gas pipeline fire will be fully restored by Friday, said Selangor State Infrastructure and Agriculture Committee chairman Izham Hashim.
He added that telecommunications services in the area are also expected to be fully restored by Friday.
“I received information earlier regarding electricity. By this Friday, the electricity supply to the entire village and the neighbouring village should be fully restored. Only a few houses remain as of now, but the issue there is mainly that the homeowners have yet to return, that’s a separate matter.
“But at least the electricity supply will reach the meter point, and a few safety installations will be in place, to be activated once the homeowner is ready to move back in,” he told reporters at a press conference here.
For homes that are unsafe, where the metering system or the distribution board (DB board) has been damaged, Izham said that electricity supply will not be reconnected.
“If the system is still intact, they will install it and remove the main fuse until the homeowner is ready to perform tests to ensure the internal wiring is in good condition,” he added.
On gas supply, Izham said the explosion forced two power stations in Selangor to stop operation and are currently on stand-by mode.
“A large part of the gas supply is for the electricity power stations. There are four power plants involved, namely in Serdang, Connaught Bridge, Pulau Indah, and Kapar. Two of these can switch (to alternative) fuel, one uses coal, another uses distillate fuel. However, the other two, Connaught Bridge and Pulau Indah, can only operate on gas, so they are currently on standby mode.
“As of now, the electricity supply has not been affected. Power can still be distributed to other power plants to meet the national electricity demand,” he said.
Izham added that there was a slight impact on the gas supply to Gas Malaysia Bhd, with around 330 million cubic feet of gas affected by the disruption.
“This involves around 300 factories and about 8,000 residential and commercial areas. We’ve discussed with Gas Malaysia and Petronas how we can help to minimise the impact of the gas supply disruption to these areas, including the power stations,” he said.
