Mumbai, Feb 27
Several parts of Mumbai suffered a power outage in the morning hours on Sunday following the tripping of the line at Trombay receiving station that connects to the transmission system controlled by Tata Power, a key power generator for the city.
Areas in the central, south as well as the suburbs of the city were affected due to the outage. The suburban rail services at all the three lines – Western, Central and Harbour – were also disrupted. Western railway services between Churchgate and Andheri were claimed to have been restored before noon.
“At 9:50 hrs, in South Mumbai, Chembur, Bandra and Santacruz suburbs areas, along with Central and part Western Railway, power supply got affected due to tripping of MSETCL line at MSETCL Trombay receiving station that connects to Tata Power transmission system,” a statement from Tata Power said.
Tata Power, one of India’s largest power generating companies, said that the failure was due to massive voltage fluctuations in the grid supplying power. State government-run Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport (BEST) relies on Tata Power for distribution of electricity in the city. Sion, Matunga, Dadar, Parel, Byculla, Churchgate, CSMT and other areas were among those that were without power.
The tripping of Trombay Generation had a cascading effect leading to the tripping of some internal lines affecting 850 MW load of all distribution companies (discom) in Mumbai.
“Tata Power immediately stepped up hydro generation to full capacity for faster restoration and avoidance of larger outage. Power supply was restored completely in around an hour,” the Tata Power statement further added.
While Mumbai suffered its last noted blackout in October 2020 due to a human error, power outages in the Maharashtra capital is rare as its electricity supply system is designed to supply power 24X7.
Ninad Pitale, Project Director, Mumbai Urja Marg Transmission Project said, “As India’s leading industrialized state, the power sector in Maharashtra must find ways to anticipate and mitigate future disruptions in the power supply. To avoid recurring power outages, it is imperative to strengthen the existing transmission infrastructure and create an additional corridor to ensure reliable and uninterrupted power supply.”