SEVERAL MEASURES TAKEN TO RESTORE POWER SUPPLY IN NORTHERN STATES INCLUDING CAPITAL 

MAY 31, 2014 BY SAGARMEDIA

Shri Piyush Goyal , Minister of State for Power (Independent charge)  reviewed  here today the situation arisen out of load interruption in Northern Grid during fierce storm in the capital and adjoining states yesterday with senior officers including the Secretary Power, Chief Secretary Govt. of Delhi, officials of DTL, DISCOMs of Delhi, CEA, POWERGRID & Power System Operation Corporation (POSOCO), etc.                Yesterday between 16:00hrs to 19:00hrs, Northern Grid experienced a heavy demand crash from due to rain, dust/thunder storm and wind speeds exceeded 75kmph in Delhi, UP, Haryana & Uttarakhand regions. As a result, 68 AC transmission lines including one HVDC Bi-pole tripped. The load loss was at the rate of 200MW per minute resulting in a Northern grid load loss of about 8,000MW including 3,500 MW in Delhi. Corrective actions taken Based on the 2 hourly NOWCAST weather reports of IMD, all states and generating stations were alerted about the likelihood of the storm timely and advised on corrective action. As a result all generating stations and state load despatch centres cooperated to combat the situation in the real time. Out of 68 lines tripped during the incident, 49 lines have been restored, including the HVDC line and supply has been restored gradually in all the states. In Delhi, the restoration of lines was taken up on war footing level and top most priority accorded for restoring power emergency services such as Hospitals, Delhi Metro, water treatment plants and NDMC area. Presently, about 3,800 MW load is being met. There is a load restriction of about 200 MW in Pappankala, Gopalpur & Rohini areas of Delhi. Assistance has been provided to Delhi through Emergency Restoration System (ERS) for early restoration of affected lines especially three 220kV lines, Mandola – Gopalpur, Bamnauli – Pappankalan and Bawana – Rohini, which are affecting the power supply in Northern Delhi region. The Minister has assured all possible help to Delhi in early restoration of the lines and directed POWERGRID to extend all co-operation in this regard.  Shri Goyal  also commended the officials of Ministry of Power, Load Despatch centres and Utilities, Govt. of NCT of Delhi for their herculean efforts throughout the night to combat the unexpected situation. He took stock of disaster recovery mechanisms and rapid action response measures. He directed that more ERS equipment should be maintained by all the states and central utilities to reduce the outage time and suffering of the people. He also advised Delhi govt. / central Govt. officials to disseminate information to public through web-site and social media about the outages and likely time of interruptions to reduce the inconvenience to the public.