Mumbai power outage: Centre to send CEA officials to study incident; state govt orders inquiry

• On Monday morning, Mumbai and its suburbs — Thane, Raigad and Palghar areas — witnessed a power cut at 10 am

• The Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray has ordered an inquiry into power failure incident

New Delhi: In the wake of the unprecedented large-scale power outage in Mumbai that disrupted the city life during peak hours on Monday, the Centre has announced its decision to send a team of Central Electricity Authority (CEA) officials to Mumbai to study the outage and offer help to the state government. Tata Power said that the power outage was triggered due to the simultaneous tripping of power transmissions lines. The company added that its attempt towards islanding, a mechanism which allows a power unit to supply power to a local area despite grid failure, of the Trombay unit failed due to the huge and sudden drop in power load. On Monday morning, Mumbai and its suburbs — Thane, Raigad and Palghar areas — witnessed a power cut at 10 am. Restoration of electricity supply was done progressively by Tata Power, starting around 12 pm.

MSETC transmission system at Kalwa tripped at around 10 am: Tata Power

Tata Power said that based on the preliminary assessment of the incident, Maharashtra State Electricity Transmission Company's 400 KV transmission system at Kalwa which supplies to Mumbai and adjoining areas tripped at around 10 am. Mahatransco's 400kV Pune-Kalwa line was under forced shutdown since Sunday due to phase fault, and the utility had undertaken an emergency shutdown for 400 KV Kalwa- Padghe line early morning Monday and aimed to revive it by 09:30IST but could not.

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"As understood, at 09:58hrs 400kV Kalwa-Padghe-2 carrying 633 MW tripped. The flow on Pune-Kharghar rose upto 900 mw and tripped at 10:00 IST 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 10:05 IST," Tata Power said. 

State govt orders inquiry into power failure

Meanwhile, the Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray has ordered an inquiry into power failure incident. Union Minister for Power RK Singh said on Monday evening that a team comprising of officials from the Central Electricity Authority (CEA) will be sent to Mumbai to study the power outage and assist the state government in finding solutions to such situations. "A central team will visit Mumbai to identify the problem and to find out possible solutions against such break down," Singh said in an official statement.

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