The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : Painful power cuts come unannounced!

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jul 08, 2008
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

Painful power cuts come unannounced!

Staff Reporter

The situation becomes worse in the context of growing residential and commercial complexes in city

PHOTO: NAGARA GOPAL

AT THE RECEIVING END: Residents are put to untold miseries due to the rampant power cuts.

HYDERABAD: The city with its power-driven growth pattern and lifestyle received a jolt of sorts administered by rampant blackouts during recent times. Post summer, the Central Power Distribution Company Ltd. has resorted to prolonged and painful power cuts without scheduled timings or duration.

According to officials the 100-plus substations within the limits of Greater Hyderabad are taking turns to be zeroed for duration of two hours at different times of the day. However, the two-hour limit is rarely adhered to.

“We had no power from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Thursday. Even on other days, we face power cuts of three to four hours without any announcement,” says M.Srinivas, a resident of Kukatpally. The authorities, with permission from the government, began to announce the power cut schedules only recently.

The situation becomes more painful in the context of growing residential and commercial complexes in the city. Acute difficulty is with regard to elevators and water supply.

While the situation is critical, CPDCL is equally at pains to stretch its means to meet the ends. Barren clouds down south and heavy floods in the western part of the country are playing havoc with the power situation throughout the southern states. With depleted water levels in the Srisailam reservoir, closure of two units in VTPS due to technical snags and virtual halting of hydel power generation, the power management in the State has become a tightrope walk. Closure of hydel units in West Bengal and Orissa for overhauling has robbed the State of prospective sellers too.

Set schedule

“Notwithstanding the existing demand of 4000 MW, the CPDCL is given a schedule to transmit only 2700 MW. Of this, about 1400 MW is consumed by the Greater Hyderabad region alone despite load shedding. This has forced us to take demand-side management measures,” says U.Vidyasagar, the Divisional Engineer at the Load Monitoring and Restriction Centre at the corporate office.

Rural areas are slapped with total blackouts, except for the 7-hour supply to agriculture. The city, with its needs grown multi-fold over the years, gobbles up much of the power that should go to districts. While the scheduled allocation for the city stands at 15 million units per day, the actual consumption even after load shedding hovers around 17 MU.

Any overdraft from the grid will result in plummeting frequency levels-- a continuous threat for the CPDCL officials.

A minimum frequency of 48.5 hertz should be maintained to save the grid from collapse.

Several complaints

“We are playing on the threshold between 49.5 to 50 hertz with the clock of penalty ticking over our heads,” says Mr.Vidyasagar. Any overdraft would penalise the company to the extent of Rs.10 per unit. Hence, whenever the load gets heavy, supply is stopped to a chunk of substations. Currently, load shedding is to the extent of 100 to 130 MW per day depending on the demand. Complaints are also many about the lack of response from the 24-hour call centre under SCADA. Superintendent Engineer of SCADA P.Ramgopal says that all the 16 lines get busy during power cuts due to increased line traffic. “We are operating round-the-clock in three shifts. Every conversation is recorded. However, it would be difficult to accommodate calls when ten substations are tripped at a time,” he says.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Andhra Pradesh