COVID-19 hospitals unaffected amid power outage in Mumbai – The Hindu

Despite the unprecedented power outage in Mumbai and its surrounding areas on Monday, COVID-19 hospitals continued to work uninterrupted, said the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC).

“Even though the frequency of power cuts within BMC limits is less, all municipal hospitals are equipped with automatic diesel generators at all times. Today, after the power outage, the automatic diesel generators started immediately. The solid waste management department was directed to ensure diesel storage. As a result, all hospitals continued to function without interruption,” the BMC said.

The civic body said its disaster management department ensures that all private COVID-19 hospitals also has necessary supplies of diesel to run generators in case of emergency. “No health services were hampered due to the power outage in Mumbai,” the BMC said.

Navi Mumbai and Raigad implemented rotational load shedding throughout the day after the power failure at 10.10 a.m. disrupted traffic signals, online classes, work from home schedules and household chores. Around 12 p.m., power in Navi Mumbai started being restored. “In the afternoon, on a priority basis, we started switching on the feeders providing power to the hospitals with the existing load. Once the work at the main line of fault was completed around 7 p.m., electricity was restored in a step by step manner to avoid overloading,” Rajaram Mane, superintendent engineer, Vashi circle of MSEDCL, said.

At the time of going to press, many areas in Koparkhairane, Ghansoli, Airoli, Taloja, Panvel, Nerul, Kharghar, Kamothe, where power had been restored in the afternoon, plunged into darkness again. “We started rotational load shedding till the main fault was rectified. The feeders were supplying power in rotation so that power supply to hospitals do not go off,” an executive engineer from Navi Mumbai said.

The 400 kV Kalwa-Talegaon line was undergoing repairs since October 10. On Monday, when the 400 kV Kalwa–Padghe circuit no. 1 of MSETCL was being repaired, all the load was transferred to circuit no. 2.

Milind Awatade, MSETCL PRO, said due to the sudden technical fault in circuit no. 2, power supply was affected in Mumbai, Thane and parts of Raigad. The officers and employees of MSETCL worked on a war footing to restore power supply.

He said, as three of the four lines supplying power to Kalwa substation tripped, all the load was transferred to the 400 kV Talegaon–Kharghar and 400 kV Kharghar–Kalwa lines.

“Due to heavy sparks, those lines tripped too. The Kharghar-Kalwa line got deenergised (zero load) and the Mumbai system got delinked,” Mr. Awatade said.

As the 500 MW unit of Tata Power tripped, 1700 MW load in MMR region was affected. “This multiple power grid failure at this massive level at the State Load Dispatch Centre happened for the first time,” he said.

(With additional inputs from Raina Assainar)