Sea-saw power trip continues in Mumbai

In a deacutejagrave vu moment parts of Mumbai and the metropolitan area were subjected to emergency power cuts on Tuesday morning Electricity supply was restored in a couple of hours after rearranging the routes that bring power from outside The city had such power failures in October 2020 and February 2022Like in the past the lines of Mahatransco the statersquos electricity transmission company tripped This time all 400kV and 220kV lines at Padgha substation tripped due to a 400kV bus fault This stopped supply in some parts of Mumbai and the MMR Subsequently 400kV Bableshwar 1 and 2 lines were taken into service at 1030 am and 1033 am respectively KalwaPadgha 1 and 2 lines were taken in service at 1033 am and 1036 am respectively said MahatranscoLongdistance passengers wait outside Borivli railway station as power failure disrupts train services October 12 2020 PicSatej ShindeBy 12 noon the Mumbai network was fully restored but not before areas like Dadar Mahim Dharavi Chembur Mankhurd Govandi Santacruz and Bandra Bhandup and Mulund were subjected to power cuts Tata Power said in order to maintain grid balance load shedding was initiated Its receiving station at Dharavi tripped because of Mahatransco failure which ultimately impacted the suburban supply of Adani The shortage did not disrupt the suburban railway network thoughMahavitaranrsquos substations at Wada Kamba Vasai Thanersquos Kolshet Colourchem Anandnagar and Jambhul Palava Bhiwandi Ambernath Shahapur Murbad Mohane Pise Panjarapur and Dombivli were also affected till 1110 am Mumbai cityrsquos supply trimmed by 22502350MW in the morning peak hour Adani claimed it restored supply in 40 minutes Mahavitaran said it did in 7080 minutes in its areas of distribution Tata Power said it restored supply for its consumers in 30 minutesOnus on poor networkAll four distribution companiesmdashBEST Mahavitaran Tata and Adanimdashthat cater to the city and the suburbs pointed fingers at Mahatransco for the failure Tata sells its electricity to BEST for distribution in the island city and also has its own consumers across the city Adani supplies in the western and the eastern suburbs Mahavitaran has consumers between Kanjurmarg and Mulund and in the rest of MaharashtraHowever Mahatransco insiders say the company has always been a soft target and made a scapegoat without considering its handicap They said the Padgha facility where the breakdown happened on Tuesday was built way back in 1994 ldquoIt has old design and equipment that cannot withstand an additional inflow of electricity Over the years the system is overburdened by another 45005000MW because of the rise in demand It canrsquot handle overload When one of the existing transmission corridors fails for technical reasons the situation worsens High atmospheric temperature has been creating additional issues for the equipmentrdquo an official told midday adding that it would need more time and resources to upgrade the networkSources said Mahatransco has served a showcause notice to its Director operations Anil Kolap He has been asked to furnish a response in three days they added But Kolap said he has not received anything yet He took over as the director barely six months agoDelayed city projectsThe cityspecific transmission projects of bringing 2000MW more power are on the anvil but delayed A 1000MW highvoltage direct current link between 400kV Kudus and 220kV Aarey EHV power stations has hit a legal hurdle as Tata Power has petitioned the Supreme Court against the Appellate Tribunal for Electricityrsquos order that upheld the Maharashtra Electricity Regulatory Commissionrsquos decision to award a Rs 7000crore transmission contract on a nomination basis to Adani Electricity in March 2021 Tata argues the award was not transparent and was given without tariffbased competitive bidding route and excluded other competent companies Adani has set a deadline of 2026 for completing the project but it can move ahead only after the case is decidedAnother Adani project of 1000MW the KhargharVikhroli transmission line which was to be built by this year end could be delayed by a couple of months said sources After the 2020 power failure Adani had promised the state government to complete the corridor by December 2022FlashbackPreviously two major incidents within two yearsmdashon October 12 2020 and February 27 2022mdashhad exposed the vulnerability of transmission lines that bring power to Mumbai especially the one operated by Mahatransco which is responsible for carrying about 1800MW of the cityrsquos total demand The February outage lasted 70 minutes in the city while the October 2020 failure was serious because the supply in some parts of the city was restored after only a day It affected the cityrsquos embedded generation at Tata Powerrsquos Trombay plant which also tripped as a cascading effect In the aftermath the State Load Despatch Centre accused Tata Power of not responding to its directives On Tuesday there was no incident at Tatarsquos stationIn 2020 the cityrsquos islanding system a mechanism that guards the countryrsquos economic capital against outages failed for the first time since 1997 enforcing the prolonged blackouts Thereafter the government and central electricity agencies conducted a probe and recommended that the cityrsquos power infrastructure needed an urgent upgrade More lines must be built to carry power from outside to cater to the growing demand they said The plan is being worked out amid constant threats of tripping of the existing infrastructure7080 minTime it took Mahavitaran to restore supply