Georgia was hit by another nationwide power blackout on the evening of August 5, the third such incident in two weeks following the July 24–25 outages.
Power was cut at around 20:10, forcing Tbilisi Metro, among other services, to stop operating, while individual consumers across the country were reporting the outage on social media. Electricity began to be gradually restored from around 21:00.
Giorgi Pangani, a member of Georgia’s National Energy and Water Supply Regulatory Commission (GNERC), which acts as an independent regulator overseeing the electricity sector, said the outage occurred during “planned testing” by State Electrosystem (GSE), the country’s main transmission grid owner, at units of Enguri HPP, a major electricity producer to Georgia, including the occupied Abkhazia region.
GSE later issued a statement saying that the work at Enguri HPP was aimed at studying the causes of the July 24–25 blackouts and required the electricity system to operate in isolation and at non-standard frequencies, resulting in the temporary nationwide outage.
GSE Head Vano Zardiashvili was reported to have been dismissed days after the July 24–25 outages.
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