Maximum City Mumbai saw an unprecedented power outage on Monday morning bringing life to a near standstill. Tata power through its Twitter handled, said that simultaneous substation tripping in MSETCL's Kalwa, Kharghar causing a huge dip in frequency in the Mumbai transmission system which led to tripping of Mumbai power supply.
At noon, Tata Power tweeted about restoration of power. It said, "Tata Power has progressively started restoring supply to all its customers starting from 12 noon and has restored supply fully," the company said in a tweet."
Tata Power then came out with an official statement on the power outage in Mumbai and said, " many parts of Mumbai experienced an unforeseen electricity failure starting at 10 am in the morning due to tripping of MSETCL’s 400 KV transmission system at Kalwa which supplies to Mumbai and adjoining areas. MSETCLs 400kV Pune-Kalwa line was under forced shutdown since yesterday due to R-Y phase fault."
It further added, " It is understood that MSETCL had taken emergency shutdown for 400 KV Kalwa- Padghe line -1 at 6.54hrs today morning to attend fault and was expected to be revived by 09:30hr, but could not revive it. As understood, at 09:58hrs 400kV Kalwa-Padghe-2 carrying 633 MW tripped. The flow on Pune-Kharghar rose upto 900MW and tripped at 10:00hrs resulting in load drop in Mumbai system."
"Mumbai’s islanding system that saves the city from major power outages was separated, however, it could not hold as additional 900MW load dropped at 10:05hrs. Tata Power swiftly began restoration work to bring back supply from the 3 Hydro units and Trombay gas and coal units as soon as the MSETCL transmission lines were connected. Tata Power started restoring supply to its consumers progressively from 12 noon onwards."
"Tata Power regrets the inconvenience caused to its consumers due to this unforeseen event in power failure due to the transmission system failure leading to the cascading impact to all downstream suppliers of electricity including Tata Power, BEST and its consumers,” the official statement concluded.
Juhu, Andheri, Mira Road, Navi Mumbai, Thane and Panvel were the worst affected areas due to power cut. Local train services, which are only operating for essential workers currently, were also affected. "In view of interruption in Traction power at 10.05 hrs due to Grid failure of Tata Power company, services btwn Churchgate & Borivili are suspended. It shall be resumed as soon as traction power supply is restored. Commuters are requested to cooperate. However, Power supply, from MSETCL available at Vasai Road & it has been extended to work essential suburban trains between Borivali to Virar section. Efforts are on to start services in Churchgate- Borivali section. Commuters are requested not to panic & maintain social distancing," a statement from Western Railways said.
