The haunting power cuts are back. And it’s official.
Several parts of Tamil Nadu experienced power cuts for the past two days, with the duration ranging from two hours in rural areas to half-an-hour in urban localities, except Chennai.
That load shedding has come back is acknowledged in the daily statements of grid details, hosted on the website of the Tamil Nadu Transmission Corporation (TANTRANSCO), a subsidiary of the TNEB Limited.
On Thursday, the quantum of load shedding was 932 megawatt (MW) in the morning and about 260 MW in the evening. On Friday morning, it was around 980 MW.
The power cuts have returned a month >after Chief Minister Jayalailthaa announced their lifting for high-tension industrial units and commercial establishments from June 1 . She had also said all restrictions, imposed since November 2008, would be removed.
The scheduled low-tension load shedding also stands withdrawn, the Energy Department said in a communication to the Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corporation (Tangedco) and the Tamil Nadu Electricity Regulatory Commission (TNERC) on May 29.
Meanwhile, Coimbatore district experienced half-an-hour to one hour load shedding for the last two days. In Tiruchi, domestic consumers suffered power cut for half-an-hour to one hour on Friday. There was no power cut during the night. As for rural areas, load shedding ranged from half-an-hour to two hours, depending upon the time.
Tangedco attributes it to problems in the generation of two units of the Vallur thermal power station and loss of wind energy. On Friday, the Vallur units resumed production. But, only 850 MW of wind power was available in the morning as against 2,000 MW earlier. Officials hope that things will be better from Saturday.
As for Chennai, there has been no load shedding for grid operations, the officials maintain. The disruptions in the supply have been owing to “local problems.” The spike in demand comes from domestic consumers, given the use of more electrical gadgets, they add.
(With additional reporting from M. Soundariya Preetha, Coimbatore and S. Ganesan,Tiruchi)
