Jordan restores power after major outage

AMMAN — The electricity blackout that different regions of Jordan experienced on Friday affected residential and commercial activities, according to citizens and business owners.

On Friday, Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Hala Zawati said during a joint press briefing at the Prime Ministry that the electricity blackout was caused by a technical electrical malfunction in the Jordanian-Egyptian electricity interconnection, resulting in an outage in high-voltage grids leading to the widespread power outage in the Kingdom.

“The power outage occurred at approximately 1:18pm,” the minister added, pointing out that the staff of the National Electric Power Company immediately commenced repair work, through the company’s control centre.

The National Electric Power Company (NEPCO) on Friday said that electricity returned to all parts of the Kingdom at 6:15pm ending the major outage that lasted for few hours due to maintenance work of the network in Egypt, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

The power outage caused disruption of water pumping in many areas in the Kingdom, which affected the water distribution schedule nationwide. The outage also caused disturbance in the Internet services.

As for hospitals, Health Minister Feras Al Hawari  said that the situation in all hospitals was under control.

Airports’ operations were not affected by the power outage as they rely on generators in such situations, Petra added.

Several areas in Jordan experienced a power outage in 2014 as a result of a malfunction in one of the electricity generation stations. A widespread power outage also occurred in 2004, which was caused by a technical failure in the Aqaba Thermal Power Station. 

“There is no doubt that the blackout has disrupted business, but it would have been worse had it lasted for longer,” according to Waleed Ali, a supermarket owner, who noted that he received fewer customers during the power outage. 

Haifa Mahmoud, a manager at a beauty salon in Amman, told The Jordan Times on Saturday that the power outage on Friday has impacted the salon’s work.

“We heavily rely on electric appliances to perform most of our services at the salon,” Mahmoud said.