Minister of Energy Taner Yıldız has announced that the General Director of TEİAŞ (Turkey Electricity Transmission Company) has resigned following the massive 9-hour countrywide blackout on 31 March 2015.
Minister Yıldız, in the press statement he made on the power outage explained, “…a total of 7 power lines were disabled by some means and other” and added that “The load on the eastern lines that supply western areas increased. The outage took place when the system tried to protect itself, and the connection between the east and the west failed. It was the result of a domino effect that took a mere 12 seconds. The power outage began with a malfunction on our lines. There was a technical malfunction, but we have also considered that there was an operational error. We are also investigating the possibility of an external intervention.”
Yıldız concluded by stating that an investigation had begun regarding those responsible, and that Kemal Yıldır, the General Director of TEİAŞ (Turkey Electricity Transmission Company) had resigned.
