Chennai has been facing a near second summer over the past few months. For the metropolis, this had led to more questions over the availability of water and power in the coming years.
As far as power goes, the Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corporation (Tangedco) has come up with an elaborate infrastructure development proposal to improve the distribution network in the city for the coming months.
A senior official of Tangedco said with the demand in the city in the range of 2,500 mega watt (MW), the distribution network comprising substations, feeder lines and auto transformers, has almost reached 75 per cent of the actual capacity. In such a situation, Tangedco has been forced to resort to load shedding on a rotation basis in case of any power outages in the substation or feeder lines. To prevent overloading, a proposal gives top priority to improve the distribution network to face the summer of 2016. The proposal has been sent to Tamil Nadu Transmission Corporation (Tantransco), he added.
The improvement proposal involved commissioning of new 230 kilo volt (KV) substations, auto transformers, and additional or alternate feeder lines to various substations in the city.
The proposal document notes the fact that the power transformers in the R.A. Puram 110 KV substation are reaching full capacity in the event of a snag in the power transformers or the supply line from Taramani substation. Transferring the load to Mylapore substation has also been found to be not feasible. Thus, prevent load shedding, a substation of 230 KV-capacity has been recommended in R.A. Puram.
The proposal also focuses on the lack of additional sources for the 230 KV Basin Bridge substation and the need to make alternate arrangements to Alandur and Guindy substations. The official said with the three 230 KV substations in Basin Bridge, Tondiarpet and Mylapore not having any 230 KV sources, even in case of any one feeder failing, there could be power interruption spread over a large areas covering Madras High Court, Chintadripet, Valluvarkottam, Nandanam, Seven Wells and Government Estate.
If at all an additional feeder source to the Basin Bridge substation could be installed, the officials of Tangedco of several 110 KV substations would not be on tenterhooks. Similarly, an alternate source to the Alandur substation for the present Kadaperi-Guindy feeder needs to be planned, as the Kadaperi-Guindy feeder was also feeding the Guindy substation causing tripping of electricity to both the Guindy and Alandur substations.
A 230 KV substation has been proposed at Thiruverkadu to give relief to 110 KV substations including Ambattur Industrial Estate, Thiruverkadu and Ayyapakkam.
Chennai is served by a total of 178 substations of various capacities. |
400 kilo volt (KV) substations – 4 nos. (Alamathy, Kalivanthapattu, Ottiyampakkam, Sriperumpudur) |
230 KV substations – 13 nos (Koyambedu, Koyambedu CMRL, Guindy, Basin Bridge, Tondiarpet, Kadapperi, Taramani, Siruseri, KITS Park, Alandur, Mylapore, Korattur, and Alandur CMRL) |
110 KV substations - 57 nos. |
City’s electricity demand – 2,600 mega watt |
Energy consumption – 50 million units |
ew substations proposed – 230 KV in R.A. Puram, Thiruverkadu and Mambalam |
