In about four months, power may not play hide-and-seek with the residents of areas in and around Yelahanka. The long-standing infrastructural works of Karnataka Power Transmission Corporation Ltd. (KPTCL) are set to gain steam with its experiment with a new tool for line clearance (LC) proving to be successful.
The ‘covered conductor’, imported from Sweden, has been implemented in the first phase in Yelahanka that has been facing intermittent power supply for the past several months due to transmission constraints. This is because the load on the existing 66 kV lines installed during at the time of construction of the 220 kV Sharavathi Receiving Station, Peenya in 1965, increased substantially after the Yelahanka diesel plant closed down.
Touted to be the first time in the country that the new tool is being used with 66 kV capacity (35 kV has been used in Mangaluru), the new tool will address three main problems, said Energy Minister D.K. Shivakumar here on Saturday.
“It is much cheaper than going for underground cabling, it needs very little space, and it is much safer,” he said.
KPTCL Managing Director Jawaid Akhtar said with the new tool in place, upgradation work need not mean load-shedding as the load can be shifted to the parallel 11-metre temporary towers while work is being undertaken.
In the absence of the tool, power consumers around Yelahanka, Abbigere, Sahakarnagar and Vidyaranyapura – commercial, industrial and residential – would have had to face power cuts from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. for 100 days every day.
KPTCL officials said about four MCMV (multi-circuit, multi-voltage – 220 kV and 66 kV) towers are being constructed in the city areas, with the numbers going up wherever there were more curves and turns.
