Moataz Wanis / Anadolu

The Electricity Ministry of the parliament-appointed government in Libya announced on Saturday a power outage across the entire eastern part of the country and part of the west, due to the sudden shutdown of power plants, while the grid is being fed via the line connecting with Egypt.

The ministry said in a statement that the electrical grid experienced a complete blackout in most areas of the country, as a result of the sudden shutdown of a number of main power plants, including the Gulf and Misrata plants.

The ministry confirmed that technical teams are working to gradually rebuild the grid, according to technical plans, and to gradually bring generation units and plants back online, in preparation for restoring electricity supply.

It emerged, according to the statement, that the cause of the power outage was the disconnection of the line between the Misrata and Al Khums stations (west of the country), with a voltage of 400 kilovolts, which caused the reverse flow of power that was heading to the western grid with a thermal load of 350 megawatts.

While the ministry did not specify in its statement the areas affected by the outage, the Anadolu correspondent clarified that the eastern region is currently experiencing a power outage, while the western region is experiencing a partial outage.

In another statement, the same ministry said on Saturday morning that the Minister of Electricity and Renewable Energy of the Libyan government, Awad al-Badri, made intensive contacts at dawn with the First Deputy Minister of Electricity and Energy of Egypt, Ahmed Mahina, and the head of the Egyptian Electricity Transmission Company, Mona Rizk, and the head of Egyptian Control, Adel al-Omari.

The statement added that it was agreed to restore electricity supply via the Libyan-Egyptian interconnection lines, to enable recharging of main stations and begin gradually restoring the electrical grid.

The ministry reassured citizens that the grid rebuilding work is ongoing around the clock, as electricity has arrived from the Egyptian side, and technical teams continue their efforts to rebuild the grid and gradually restore electricity to various cities and areas.