Technical glitches forcing three power plants in the neighbouring States to close down has led to power outages in several parts of the Capital on Monday. Power cuts ranging from 30 minutes to over two hours made life miserable for the people particularly in South, West and East Delhi areas after power supply was interrupted since Sunday midnight.
Power Department officials said two hydro power plants in Himachal Pradesh and a thermal plant at Singrauli in Uttar Pradesh, affected the inter-regional lines. On account of this fault, the entire Northern Grid faced power shortage to the tune of 3,000 MW.
While the maximum power demand of the city remained at 5,226 MW, the worst affected was, once again, West Delhi. Areas like Tilak Nagar, Najafgarh, Uttam Nagar, Rohini and Patel Nagar faced outages for as long as three hours. South, East and North Delhi were also not spared from the appalling power scenario.
Vasant Vihar, Panchsheel Park, Nehru Place, Masjid Moth Road, South Extension and Vasant Kunj bore power cuts ranging from 20 mintues to two hours. In East Delhi, Karkardooma, laxmi Nagar, Anand Vihar and Ashok Nagar were affected. In North Delhi, Kashmere Gate, Mukherjee Nagar and Model town faced power outages between 12:30 pm to 3:30 pm to the tune of 70 MW.
Officials said that Delhi faced power shortage of around 250 MW as the Nathpa Jhakri hydro power plant, located in Himachal Pradesh that supplies 150 MW of electricity to Delhi, was shut down. Adding to the crisis, another unit of the Singrauli thermal power plant that supplies 50 MW to Delhi was also closed due to a recurrent fault.
"The Karcham Wangtoo, Singrauli and Nathpa Jhakri plants are down because of which the inter-regional line of Agra-Gwalior is getting overloaded," said a senior official from the Power Department. The Agra-Gwalior line is important for Delhi as it facilitates drawing power from the Western Grid. "Since we are able to draw lesser power from the Northern Grid and sourcing it from the Western Grid is also difficult due to overloading of the inter-regional line, there will be rotational load-shedding in various parts of Delhi," informed the official.
"The power went out at 2 pm and did not come until 3:30 pm on Monday. It is very difficult to live without electricity when the weather is so hot and humid," complained Rajat Anand, a resident of Rohini Sector 14. Another resident of Karkardooma said, "light went off just when the water was about to be supplied. It came after two hours and hence, I could not fill the water tank."