The Hindu : Front Page : “Power availability is adequate”

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Wednesday, May 28, 2008
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“Power availability is adequate”

R. Sairam

In Madurai region, says Chief Engineer
Interruptions, owing to equipment failures

MADURAI: Power availability in Madurai region of Tamil Nadu Electricity Board (TNEB), which comprises five southern districts, is adequate.

“Interruptions in electricity supply are owing to equipment failures in power generating units in the State,” K. Balasubramanian, Chief Engineer (Distribution) of Madurai region, told The Hindu here on Monday.

Equipment failures in units such as Tuticorin Thermal Power Station, Mettur Thermal Power Station and Ennore Thermal Power Station were “instantaneous and unexpected” leading to unavoidable load shedding, he said. On Monday, as of 11 a.m., 1,426 MW was the power shortage in Madurai region, owing to outages in generating units.

Interruptions in supply also happened if fluctuations occurred in power generated through windmills.

The required amount of power for the State through windmills at Udumalpet and Tuticorin was 1,000 MW. Load shedding would be proportional to the dip in the receipt of power obtained through windmills, he said.

“On Monday, as of 11 a.m., windmills generated 620 MW.”

Also, if the allocation for the State from the Central Government’s units such as Neyveli Thermal Station fell owing to tripping and other technical reasons, load shedding had to be resorted, he said. Speaking about instances of erratic power supply and interruption, he said that it was probably because of “wear and tear of equipment” or maintenance works. The heavy winds and rains that lashed the city in recent days had also brought down a number of poles resulting in breakages of power supply lines.

Terming the power situation in the region as comfortable, he said that while the weekly power holiday was scrapped from May 16 by the Electricity Minister, restrictions on peak hour usage (6 p.m. to 10 p.m.) remained.

Madurai region requires between 850 MW and 900 MW per day and consumes 15 million to 20 million units of power.

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