Chandigarh, October 12
The northern power grid collapsed around 12:50 pm today — the third such tripping since June this year — resulting in a massive disruption of power supply to the entire north India, impacting normal life across Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Chandigarh and some parts of Delhi. Gurgaon and Faridabad were not affected by the “grid failure”, claimed a spokesperson of the Haryana power utilities.
Several long-distance trains were held up mid-track, hospitals, banks, telephone exchanges, hotels and shopping malls functioned on generators and in some cases where power back-up was not available these services stopped functioning. Industrial production was also hit.
The total restoration of power supply was possible only by 8 pm. Power supply had been restored in urban pockets and important areas within two-three hours of the grid collapse. However, industrial and rural feeders could not be restored immediately. The system is expected to “stabilise” by midnight.
The cause of the tripping has been attributed to overloading of the system. Also the fact that power generation from hydro power stations was reduced due to “less availability of water”. This has put a load on the thermal power stations and crucially the transmission system is “woefully inadequate” to handle the existing power demand. A PSEB official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the load had been increasing every year, but the distribution and transmission system was never augmented. All the northern states badly need transformers, sub-station and some spare capacity on the lines “carrying power”.
The exact point of tripping and its cause will be known only after data is analysed in the next few hours by the northern region load despatch centre, said senior engineers who were busy restoring power supply.
When the grid developed a fault it had a cascading affect on the entire generating system. Simultaneously, all hydro and thermal power generating units across north India, including those operated by the BBMB, tripped. The thermal power stations at Panipat, Bathinda and Ropar stopped. The hydro power stations were the first to be “re-started” and power supply was restored to thermal power stations to enable a “hot start up” and some restoration of thermal units was possible by 3 pm.
The restoration of power supply to the Railways was second on the priority list and trains were started within two hours. This was the third grid failure since June.
