Mumbai: Major power crisis averted!

A major power cut in the city was prevented on Wednesday thanks to good coordination and prompt action by electricity agencies and utilities that had faced major outages in the past over transmission hurdles The incident occurred when a 400kV TalegaonKharghar line carrying 625MW power from outside tripped due to a fireThe line was charged again at 244 pm but it tripped again sounding an alarm for the Maharashtra State Load Despatch Centre MSLDC that monitors and regulates transmission Mumbai needed 3663MW at the time of tripping The suburban area of Adani Electricity recorded the highest demand of the season on WednesdayIn the past incidents lenient coordination between the utilities and agencies was reported A blame game played out between them and Wednesday was no different People at Adani Electricity said Tata Power generated 150MW less when the city wanted even more supply Tata said the shortage was acute because Adanirsquos 250MW plant in Dahanu was shutAlso Read Conduct drills increase testing Centre to states amid surge in Covid19 casesCrisis avertedAccording to a report that MSLDC shared with the governmentrsquos energy department the cityrsquos embedded generation production of electricity from power stations connected to a Distribution Network was picked up to avoid any further grid disturbance and power cut of around 500MW However for some time the eastern suburbs of Bhandup and Mulund Kalwa and parts of Navi Mumbai together faced a deficit of 347MW through manual load shedding for technical reasonsA shopkeeper uses a mobile phone torch and candles at Dadar TT during a power cut on October 12 2020 File picTata Powerrsquos hydro gasbased and coalfired thermal projects increased generation quickly said the report adding that a red alert was issued through lsquoMSLDC Alert Messaging Systemrsquo to all stakeholders Mumbai was supplied with 3782MW by all utilities at certain point of time when the issue was being sorted During the crisis loading on other 400kV lines increased If loading was not reduced there were chances of load shedding to the tune of 500 MW in Navi Mumbai Kharghar Sonkhar Nerul Mahape and noncritical loads in Mumbai Dharavi Chembur said the reportMumbairsquos demand was to the tune of 3600 MW at 155pm and it was an increasing trend Also there was less margin available in the internal generation because Adani Powerrsquos Dahanu Unit2 250 MW was out from 7 am on Wednesday At Tatarsquos Trombay its Unit5 was operating at reduced capacity because of low vacuum and sea water temperature above 330CEmbedded generation restoredThe TalegaonKharghar line was restored at 430 pm Out of 347 MW deficit around 175 MW load was restored partially from 345pm by loading on remaining lines Mumbairsquos embedded generation was restored to normal Adani Electricity spokesperson said its consumers did not have any power cuts and it actually served the seasonrsquos highest peak network demand of 2042 MW on WednesdayTata Power said it played a crucial role in ensuring uninterrupted power supply to Mumbai which recorded its alltime high peak demand of 3893 MW ldquoOne of the 250 MW generation plants of another utility read Adani supplying to Mumbai was not available leading to acute shortage Despite this challenge Tata Power stepped up and used its full available thermal and hydro generation to meet the cityrsquos peak demand The company also worked closely with MSLDC to handle transmission corridor constraints and averted possible load shedding in MumbairdquoBattle of statementsAdani released yet another statement in response to Tatarsquos It said the incident showed once again how the other transmission utility of Mumbai Tata has over the years jeopardized reliability of supply by deliberately delayinplayg and neglecting Mumbairsquos Transmission capacity enhancements to protect its own embedded generation ldquoIt is unfortunate that out of its own generation of 500 MW only 350 MW was operational yet they chose to blame other utilitiesrdquo it stated furtherTata Power also released another statement ldquoThe other utility is making baseless claims regarding our generation figures SLDC data can confirm that Tata Power generated approx 1250 MW 800 MW Hydro and 450 MW Thermal to help meet the power demand gap It should be understood that all consumers were put to peril by the other utility by just having 250MW generation and this utility is depending on help from Tata Power to bail them out by citing baseless allegations during this critical summer season when the demand is touching an all time highrdquo SIC3782Power in MW supplied to city in crisis3663mwElectricity Mumbai needed when the line tripped