Over 20 states in power crisis as three grids collapse

MDT/PTI 31 July 2012

While the northern grid failed for the second straight day, the eastern and north-eastern grids too collapsed. These three grids carry about 50,000 MW of electricity and has left more than half the country powerless

New Delhi: Triggering a major power crisis, three electricity grids connecting more than 20 states and the national capital collapsed on Tuesday, reports PTI.

While the northern grid failed for the second straight day, the eastern and north-eastern grids too collapsed. These three grids carry about 50,000 MW of electricity.

The collapse has left more than half of the country powerless. Essential services and public transport systems, including Railways and the Delhi Metro were also hit.

"Grid incident occurred at 1300 hrs affecting the northern grid, eastern grid and north-eastern grid -- System Under Restoration," National Load Despatch Centre (NLDC), under the Power Ministry, said in an update.

About 22 states and union territories have been impacted by the failure of the three grids.

The northern grid covers nine regions -- Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, J&K and Chandigarh.

At least six states are covered by the eastern grid. They are West Bengal, Chattisgarh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa and Sikkim.

Meanwhile, the north eastern grid connects Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Assam, Meghalaya, Manipur, Mizoram and Tripura.

India has five electricity grids -- Northern, Eastern, North Eastern, Southern and Western. All of them are inter- connected, except the Southern grid.

All the grids are being run by the state-owned Power Grid Corporation, which operates more than 95,000 circuit km of transmission lines.

One circuit km refers to one kilometre of electrical transmission line.

Comments

User

Nem Chandra Singhal

1 decade ago

The grid failure is nothing new. It happens now and then on smaller scale. It is the failure on the bigger scale only when it comes in highlight. There shall be some system to report every outage including its reasons, persons accountable and remedial actions and that information should be in public domain. As electricity has become the master in today's times, we have to devise some servant' army to control it. Automation is another overlooked area which is neglected presently. Perhaps such large scale outages and our resultant international image will ignite the thoughts of the policy planner & implementators.
Nem Chandra Singhal

A Kumar

1 decade ago

Thanks to the Powergrid failure, we are able to witness the dooms day scenario come true. No drill could be closer to reality. As of now , we know that every system is dependent on the Grid be it Railways, Traffic Signals, Hospitals, Metro, Power Supply and everything else. These have no other back up.
It is time to make a disaster recovery plan on how we intend to manage our systems in the future. Our dependence on one system for everything is very dangerous, unsustainable and foolhardy, particularly when the Grid itself depends on actions of people you cannot control.
We always believe( naively) that in all areas ( security, defense, transportation, water) there must be preplanned back up plans and disaster security for major eventualities. However it is evident from every event which occurs now and then that there is absolutely nothing on the ground. People are left to their own, with no information, announcement systems , backups or restoral plans. Major service providers themselves have no clue about what they depend upon and what happens if this goes away.
Hope there will be someone who will at least take things a step further on having some sort of plan for failures such as these ( and not only for the grid- which is just one symptom).