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Hong Kong’s reputation marred by power outages

  • Hong Kong rightly takes pride in having one of the world’s most efficient and reliable electricity supplies but recent interruptions of service leave city with a black eye

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CLP engineering personnel enter a transformer electrical room during a power outage at On Mei House Building in Cheung On Estate in Tsing Yi on Sunday. Photo:  Dickson Lee

The government has a short fuse when it comes to outages that leave people without power. Hence “shock” and “disappointment” with one of the city’s two energy suppliers over two close but unrelated incidents.

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People tend to take electricity supply for granted. It is important therefore that CLP sheds more light on two outages in the same area.

CLP and Hong Kong Electric have a reputation for reliability, which is paramount in a crowded, high-rise international city where electricity is critical for commerce and comfort.

It is understandable that officials should reflect public concerns and confusion after a second electricity outage struck in the same locality in a week, affecting hundreds of residents at a public housing estate in Tsing Yi.

A huge cloud of smoke billows from the electrical substation on Nga Ying Chau Street in Tsing Yi, owned by CLP Power, on Sunday. Photo: Facebook
A huge cloud of smoke billows from the electrical substation on Nga Ying Chau Street in Tsing Yi, owned by CLP Power, on Sunday. Photo: Facebook

The Environment and Ecology Bureau said it was “extremely concerned and shocked”. It said Secretary for Environment and Ecology Tse Chin-wan had expressed his “great disappointment” to CLP Power managing director Joseph Law Ka-chun.

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