Hong Kong’s CLP Power ‘should prioritise’ protective devices before storm season

Engineer calls for city’s main electricity supplier to prepare for lightning, flooding after voltage dips caused recent service disruptions

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Hong Kong must enhance protective measures to avoid power cuts ahead of the storm season, says engineer. Photo: Dickson Lee

Published: 1:35pm, 24 Jun 2024Updated: 2:52pm, 24 Jun 2024

Hong Kong’s largest electricity supplier should prioritise installing devices against lightning and flooding in its network ahead of the coming storm season, especially after voltage dips caused service disruptions twice in less than two weeks, according to an engineer.

CLP Power, which supplies electricity to Kowloon, the New Territories and most of the city’s outlying islands, pledged to implement short-, medium- and long-term measures to tackle power interruptions after the latest outages on Sunday, which also prompted the government to form a task force to review whether solutions could be accelerated.

Ho Wing-yip, a veteran electrical and building services engineer, said on Monday the utility company should accelerate its medium-term measures of boosting protection for outdoor equipment and introducing additional measures to protect facilities from lightning and flooding.

The proposed short-term measures, which included deploying more manpower and mobile power generation vehicles, could only help “a bit” if voltage dipped since they targeted small-scale power supply, he said.

“With the beginning of the rainy season and typhoons expected, the priority should be waterproofing and anti-lightning measures, especially when we have over 100 transmission towers in the New Territories,” he told a radio programme.

He added that CLP Power could start by securing transmission towers and power lines on mountain tops.