Major power outage halts trains in Mumbai; MSETCL-Tata Power blame each other

A major power outage hit pockets of the financial capital on Sunday halting the city lifeline local trains for over an hour and inconveniencing residents on a weekendTaking serious note of the power disruption in Mumbai a rare occurrence the Maharashtra government has ordered a highlevel probeThe staterun Maharashtra State Electricity Transmission Company MSETCL and the private sector Tata Power blamed each other for the outage which lasted for over an hour in the morning hoursThe power supply was fully restored from around 11 am starting with emergency services like the railwaysServices on the Western Railway between Andheri and Churchgate stations stopped for over an hour starting 0950 hrs Central Railways Harbour line experienced a brief stopping of services and the heritage Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus station saw an outage of electricity supplyAn MSETCL statement attributed the outage which comes almost 17 months after a massive outage in October 2020 to a technical fault triggered after a series of events while the private producer Tata Power blamed it on the transcoMSETCL said some lines were shut due to the metro building works while the alternatives also faced a technical fault leading to the outageAt 0844 hours there was a technical fault on the TrombayMulund transmission line leading to a surge in demand the statement said adding that Tata Power was requested for additional supply from its thermal and hydel unitsHowever the Tata group company insisted on an email to start the supply from its units If the company had provided the power we could have avoided the incident alleged MSETCLTata Powers president for transmission and distribution Sanjay Banga countered MSETCL saying iquestour initial investigation is that this disturbance in our grid was because of the tripping of MSETCL linesiquestThere are four circuits at MSETCL which supply power to the Trombay receiving stations of Tata Power he said specifying that two circuits were already under maintenance the third circuit tripped at 840 hrs and the last circuit at 950 hrsWhen it tripped it created a disturbance in our Tata Power system There was a reduction in demand to the tune of 850 MW The total demand of Mumbai came down from 2000 MW to around 1200 MW and different parts of Mumbai were affected like South Mumbai Chembur and suburban areas he saidBanga said the company restored the power supply in an hour by stepping up hydro generation to full capacity and avoided much larger damageMaharashtra Energy Minister Nitin Raut said he has ordered a highlevel inquiry into the 70minute power outage incident in South Mumbai as per a statement from his officeI instructed the officials to ensure restoration of the power supply at the earliest and also took stock of the work in progress at regular intervals The power supply was restored in 70 minutes The government has taken serious note of the incident and a highlevel probe has been ordered Those found guilty will be punished the power minister saidPeople enjoying the dayoffs at their residences in Central and south Mumbai and also some in the western suburbs faced inconveniences while the timing of the outage of services aggravated the woes for those who had advanced their travels due to the scheduled maintenance works on railway tracks on SundayIn a statement Adani Energy Mumbai said the power supply was caused due to the tripping of the 220 kv transmission line and the subsequent outage at Tatas Trombay Power plantThe company ramped up generation at its plant in Dahanu and its consumers are largely unaffectedTata Powers Banga said a detailed investigation of this outage is on and it is coordinating with all agencies including SLDC state load despatch centre to find out the exact reasonIt can be noted that the exact cause of the power outage in October 2020 which had taken up to 18 hours to restore fully is still unknown even though some officials had called it sabotage by blaming it on a cyberattackPower outages are rare in Mumbai and its satellite towns with power grids designed to supply electricity 24 hoursThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever