Today's outage in parts of Mumbai and Mumbai Metropolitan Region took place after major power breakdowns occurred on February 27, 2022, and October 12, 2020, in Mumbai due to grid collapse. It once again exposed lapses and constraints in MahaTransco's transmission network and also lackadaisical approach in upkeep and maintenance.
Further, it has also exposed transmission constraints in the evacuation of power in Mumbai and MMR as a slew of projects need to be put on fast track. The power breakdown took place today when Mumbai’s power demand shot up at 3,800 to 3,900 mw while the state's demand crossed 28,000 mw during the present summer.
A MahaTransco officer told the Free Press Journal, ‘’The detailed report will be soon submitted to the government and other authorities. However, a preliminary report claims that today’s outage was caused due to the tripping of all 400 kV transmission lines because of isolator problem after sparking observed on the pantograph isolator.’’
Incidentally, today’s outage took place at a time when a one member fact-finding panel headed by MahaTransco executive director RE Mhaske is expected to submit its report to the state government by weekend on the major power failure reported on February 27. A state energy department officer told the Free Press Journal, ‘’The panel has clearly pointed out that Tata Power did not follow the instructions given by the State Load Dispatch Centre (SLDC) to Tata Power Thermal and Tata Hydro Generation stations to increase the production capacity. The power outage in South Mumbai (Colaba, Mahalakshmi and Dadar) area was disrupted as a result of which the power plant was shut down due to additional load on Trombay Power Station. The panel observed that Tata Power should have strictly followed the SLDC’s instructions that would proved crucial.’’
Further, the panel has made a strong case for a review of Mumbai islanding system in view of rising power load. The panel has also suggested that there should be an increase in Mumbai’s embedded generation which has not been done in the last many years.
Moreover, the panel has emphasised the need to give top priority on the strengthening of transmission and its upgradation to avoid tripping leading to power outages in future.
