Power failure: airport services remain absolutely normal
"During the entire failure of power supply in the Northern Grid from 0233 hours, flight operations at IGIA were absolutely normal and there were no cancellations or delays," said a spokesperson of Delhi International Airport Limited (DIAL) that operates the airport.
He said that as soon as the power supply showed fluctuations, the "Main Receiving Sub-Station" (MRSS) at IGI airport ensured that the Diesel Generating sets automatically took the load.
"It is noteworthy that the entire load of the airport was restored within 15-60 seconds. This was made possible by an extensive arrangement of power back-up and multiple redundancies put in place by DIAL," the spokesperson said.
North India today suffered its worst ever power failure in 10 years, triggered by a grid failure.
It paralysed normal life in eight states, including the national capital, for over 15 hours.
Electricity supply was completely restored by evening.
The northern transmission grid collapsed at 2.35 AM, plunging Delhi, Haryana, Punjab, J&K, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chandigarh into darkness.
According to DIAL, although the power supply from the distribution company, Delhi Transco Limited (DTL) partially resumed at 8:33 AM, "as a precautionary measure DIAL kept the load on DG sets till 1.08 PM (10 hrs 35 mins) so that possibilities of grid fluctuations could be ruled out."
The emergency DG sets have been designed to take much more than the assigned load so that passenger and air traffic movement are not affected, DIAL.
The total installed DG capacity at the airport is 59.5 MW, which is in excess of actual loads.
To protect the airport from sudden power failure, DIAL has divided the airport into three areas for the backup power requirement. MORE