After a lull, residents in most parts of the city experienced two hours of power disruption between 6 a.m. and 8 a.m. on Tuesday, in addition to the load-shedding effected for two hours during the afternoons and one more hour in the evenings for the last few days.
S. Rani, a resident of Meenambalpuram, said her daily chores got affected due to the unannounced power disruption at the crucial morning hours. “Today, my son came home only early morning after night duty, and he could not sleep due to the power cut,” she said.
She also complained that there was power cut between 12 noon and 2 p.m. in her area for the last few days apart from one more hour in the evenings. “If we are sure of the timings of power cuts, we can plan our works accordingly. But planning becomes difficult with unexpected power cuts,” she said.
On the other hand, K.P.S. Palanivel Rajan of K.K. Nagar said sporadic power cuts for an hour or two did not have much of an impact on households that had inverters.
“Yes, there are power cuts these days but I don’t even keep track of them because of the inverter,” he said.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, a top official of the Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corporation (TANGEDCO) said the substations here effected load-shedding on the basis of instructions received from the Load Despatch Centres (LDCs).
“There is one State-level LDC in Chennai apart from three sub-LDCs in Chennai, Madurai and Erode. These LDCs send instructions on load-shedding directly to the substations after ascertaining the demand and supply of power. It is a process that keeps changing frequently,” he noted.
He further said, “We cannot say for sure whether power would be available or not available tomorrow and whether the load-shedding duration would increase or decrease. It all depends on power availability in the grid and the demand for it during different hours of the day,” he said.
