Snag in transformer sparks outages in city for 5 hours

Noida: A transformer at the 400 kV substation at Pali in Greater Noida broke down on Saturday evening, leading to a six-hour-long power outage in the city, which was ultimately fixed after 11pm.“Power transmission was disrupted as the transformer at the Pali substation got damaged around 5.49pm on Saturday. So, power supply to Sector 20 and the Botanical Garden substation was stopped. As a result, there was a prolonged outage in the city as power supply to Noida is majorly sourced from Pali. The damage could be fixed by 11pm and the supply was resumed after that,” Shivam Tripathi, executive engineer of PVVNL, told TOI.With the mercury rising up to 43 degrees Celsius, the power demand in the city has reached 2200 MW, and is expected to rise even further. “We had a power demand of about 2100 MW last week which reached about 2200 MW this week. It is expected to rise further up to 2300 MW in coming days,” said Tripathi, who further assured that there would be no supply shortage. However, he did not rule out electrical equipment like transformers, cables panels, etc, heating up, given the scorching heat.Meanwhile, Deepak Sharma— RWA president of Sector 105 — complained that the electricity supply to the sector was disrupted due to a fire in an underground cable near C-69 in the sector. “SDO and junior engineer along with other staff of the electricity department were present to fix the problem. One transformer was shut down and the outage lasted for a couple of hours” said Sharma.In Sector 53, VS Singh—RWA general secretary— was also at ground zero with the Discom team at the sector’s substation. He apprised that SDO Prem Raj and Vikrant Singh along with junior engineer OP Verma and other staff members, were occupied for a couple of hours to solve the outage through alternate lines. Areas affected by the Sector 53 substation shutdown were sectors 53, 52, 61, 23, village Hoshiarpur, etc.As supply stopped in Sector 20 and Botanical Garden substation, sectors that experienced outages included 19, 20, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 30, 31, 33 to 117, 105, 122 and 72.Umesh Sharma, RWA president of Sector 122, stated that there was unprecedented power failure in Sector 122 and nearby areas. “Assurance by the UP power minister have turned hollow. Residents were left without electricity. Evening water supply was also disrupted due to no power,” said Sharma.Kavita Jamil, vice chairperson of AVRWA, Arun Vihar, said that there was no clarity from officials on restoration of supply after the breakdown at Pali.Similarly, Anita Singh and Pradeep Vohra confirmed that there was no electricity in sectors 36 and 22 respectively from 5.30pm on Saturday. Kosinder Yadav, RWA president of Sector 117 and Somendra Yadav, another resident of the sector, reported no power supply past 5pm on Saturday till late at night.
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