Several areas in Mumbai plunge into darkness as power units trip

MUMBAI: Large parts of Mumbai, including residential and office complexes, faced power outages as unit 5 of the Trombay power station operated by Tata Power tripped on Tuesday morning, leaving many areas in darkness.

The situation got worse as two other units — 6 and 8 — of the Trombay station, generating a combined 750 MW, weren't functioning following a scheduled shutdown. Anand Mahindra, chairman and managing director, Mahindra & Mahindra, tweeted, "Dark office in Mumbai. Lights out in the whole area. The coal crisis is beginning to literally show its dark side. A threat to the India story."

Till the time of going to press, power supply to the city was partially restored even as Tata Power said everything will be normal by late Tuesday night. Tata Power Company said that restoration work for unit 5 was on and partial load has been restored through its hydro stations, adding that it had activated initialisation activities of its cold standby unit 6 of the Trombay plant.

"We are working towards an early resolution and will ensure power supply to these areas at the earliest," a company statement said. "The exact trouble apparently was due to a boiler in the unit 5 in Trombay going 'cold' which led to the disruption in power supply. Tata Power had to 'reheat' so that the boiler could reach the required frequency," said a person close to Tata Power, familiar with the matter.

"While power is available in the neighbouring areas of Maharastra, however due to overloading of state transmission network, it has not been made possible to import power for Mumbai by these distribution companies. The distribution companies are now doing a rotational load shedding in their respective areas of about 200-300 MW," said a Tata Power Company statement.

While power supply failed in Byculla, Sewree, Mahalaxmi, Worli, Dadar, Matunga, Sion and nearby areas, it had a cascading effect across other parts of the city as well. For instance, Chembur, Ghatkopar, Bandra, Santacruz, Kurla, Tilaknagar, Vikhroli, Sakinaka, Juhu and adjoining areas faced power cuts as the authorities switched off supply.This was done as a precautionary measure as it could have led to major problems in the feeder lines in these areas on account of disproportionate load.

Officials said that the distribution network was disconnected from the main transmission network. "Due to tripping at the Tata Power generation unit No.5 of 500 MW, there is transmission constraints in the Mumbai transmission corridor. Due to this rotational load shedding has been imposed by Tata Power in Chembur, Santa Cruz, Ghatkopar, Bandra, Kurla, Tilaknagar, Vikhroli, Saki Naka and Juhu," said Anil Ambani-led Reliance Infrastructure ( Rinfra).

The municipal undertaking Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport ( BEST) supplies power between Colaba and Nariman Point in the south and Sion and Mahim in the north, while Tata Power and Anil Ambani-led Reliance Infrastructure provide power to the suburbs.

Tata Power’s consumer base is 450,000, while it is 2.8 million for Rinfra, and 1 million for BEST. Competition between the power distributors has intensified since consumers in the suburbs have been given the option to choose their supplier and Tata has been allowed to enter BEST areas.