Glitches trigger power cuts
Simultaneous glitches at two CESC generating stations caused power cuts in large parts of central and north Calcutta on Monday afternoon, raising doubts over the utility’s ability to meet much higher demand during summer.
A 120MW unit at Titagarh and two 62.5MW units at the Southern station tripped at 3pm, when demand was around 1,050MW. Key utilities such as the Tallah waterworks and SSKM Hospital went without power for half an hour.
“This was the situation on a winter afternoon. One can well imagine what’s in store from April,” said a Girish Park resident who suffered an hour’s power cut from 3pm.
The peak summer demand touches 1,600MW. Calcuttans had reeled under prolonged power cuts in April and May in the past two years.
CESC, however, claimed that Monday’s incident was just an “accident” and it was “fully prepared” to meet the summer demand.
“There is no reason to believe that we are not fully prepared to meet the peak demand in summer months,” said company spokesperson Mahul Brahma.
“It seems the two Southern units tripped following a fault in a feeder switchboard (Bus Bar). We are probing the glitch at Titagarh,” said Brahma.
The Titagarh unit was restored at 4.10pm and the Southern units were back at 4.45pm and 7.30pm.
