Maharashtra govt orders probe into Mumbai power cut

Several parts of south and central Mumbai had faced massive power outages after a unit of Tata Power's Trombay plant, which primarily supplies power to the city, tripped

Maharashtra government on Wednesday ordered an inquiry into the massive power outages faced in several parts of south and central Mumbai yesterday. Inquiry will be conducted by the state energy secretary within a week to fix responsibility and suggest short and long term measures to avoid such incidents in future.

Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan informed that the decision to hold an in-depth probe was taken at the state cabinet meeting. "The state Cabinet has taken a serious cognisance of the power failure in Mumbai yesterday," Chavan tweeted.

Tata Power's Trombay plant has a generation capacity of 1,580 Mw. However, about 700 Mw of its capacity was not immediately available partly because of repairs and the request from BrihanMumbai Electric Supply & Transport (BEST) not to supply from unit 6 which runs on oil and gas.

On its behalf, Tata Power MD Anil Sardana told reporters that the problem did not pertain to Tata Power but of the holistic power system in the city. He said the unit 5 tripped due to problem in the master furnace.

''While Unit-5 restoration work is still under progress, Unit-6 (also 500 Mw), which was on cold stand-by has been synchronized & is generating. There has been no load shedding after about 9 pm on Tuesday. While the power was available in neighboring areas of Maharashtra considering rainy season, however, due to overloading of state transmission network, the distribution companies were not able to import power for Mumbai,'' Sardana said.

Sardana informed that Tata Power has secured environmental ministry nod for converting the oil and gas fired unit 6 to coal based generation unit. However, he said there needs to be political consensus before it begins work. Conversion work will take about 18 months and will cost about Rs 800 crore

Meanwhile, BEST, which is distribution licensee and procures power from Tata Power, will soon approach the Maharashtra Electricity Regulatory Commission (MERC) with a plea to conduct a thorough inquiry into the tripping of Tata Power's unit 5 which led to power outages in its area of distribution. BEST will also appeal to MERC to impose heavy penalty on Tata Power for carrying out load shedding in its distribution area.

BEST general manager OP Gupta said, " There should not be load shedding due to gap between contracted power and demand. Whatever load shedding was conducted by Tata Power after the tripping of unit 5 on Tuesday was totally unwarranted."