UG cabling lone solution to power disruptions in city

May 19, 2018 12:07 am | Updated 12:07 am IST - HYDERABAD

Overcoming the problem of breakdown and disruptions in power supply caused by vagaries of nature like heavy wind, heavy rain and others appears to be difficult for the citizens of Greater Hyderabad areas, as laying an entire transmission and distribution network underground involves huge investment of a whopping ₹40,000 crore.

Power supply was disrupted for long hours in scores of localities in the city on Thursday following heavy rain coupled with wind, snapping the overhead transmission and distribution (T&D) lines, breaking the electrical poles.

Power supply was affected in about 485 feeders with over 300 trees or their branches falling on the T&D lines. Besides, about 430 electrical poles with 11 kv transmission (98) and low-tension distribution lines (332) were broken due to heavy wind.

Stating that underground cabling was the only and permanent solution for putting an end to power disruptions caused by natural calamities, sources in Southern Power Distribution Company of Telangana Ltd (TSSPDCL) explained that such an exercise would require a huge investment of over ₹40,000 crore. “No metropolitan city in the country has such facility so far, leave alone other areas. Only developed countries such as USA and others have such a system”, the sources said.

Official sources stated that the length of low-tension distribution cables was over 25,000 km in Greater Hyderabad limits apart from high-tension lines of 14,500 km (11 kv) and 2,400 km (33 kv). Besides, underground cable was in a limited extent for 580 km (33 kv) and 380 km (11 kv).

Power supply has been restored completely in all the affected areas till Friday afternoon. “About 300 new poles were erected in place of the broken ones and the work on replacing the remaining damaged poles is in progress.

However, we have also restored supply in the localities where we could not complete erection of new poles with the help of temporary aerial bunched (AB) cables”, Director (Operations) of TSSPDCL J. Srinivas Reddy told The Hindu , when contacted.

The delay in restoration of power supply in Asmangarh area resulted in local people allegedly attacking the Divisional Engineer’s office on Thursday night.

“Our disaster management and central breakdown teams were on the work for restoration of power supply delayed by tree-falls and snapping of cables”, Mr. Srinivas Reddy said admitting the incident.

0 / 0
Sign in to unlock member-only benefits!
  • Access 10 free stories every month
  • Save stories to read later
  • Access to comment on every story
  • Sign-up/manage your newsletter subscriptions with a single click
  • Get notified by email for early access to discounts & offers on our products
Sign in

Comments

Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.

We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of The Hindu and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.