Navi Mumbai, Thane and western and central suburbs of Mumbai witnessed power cuts on April 26 after the Padgha substation in the state tripped, senior executives from power distribution companies told Moneycontrol, amid a national power crisis due to a coal supply shortage that has several states going for daily blackouts.
A Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Ltd (MSEDCL) spokesperson said, “Power supply to Dombivali, Ambernath, Badlapur and a part of Kalyan has been disrupted. The initial estimate is that the supply will restore in about half to half an hour.”
Officials said disruption at the substation was recorded at 10:10 am and power had been restored in most areas by noon.
A Tata Power Company spokesperson said, “As per the initial assessment, some parts of Mumbai today experienced electricity failure due to MSETCL line tripping as part of the 400KV Kalwa Grid, which supplies power to Mumbai and suburban areas. In order to maintain grid balance load shedding might be initiated. Power will be restored once the MSETCL line gets energised.”
MSETCL, Maharashtra State Electricity Transmission Company also known as Mahatransco, is the state-run utility that provides electricity transmission. Mumbai has three electricity distribution companies – the state run BEST Undertaking and private companies Adani Electricity and Tata Power Company. MSEDCL distributes power to the rest of the state.
An Adani Electricity spokesperson said, “The power outage affected our consumers in Chembur, Mankhurd, Govandi, Santacruz and Bandra. However, through proactive network rearrangements Adani Electricity could restore entire power supply within 40 minutes of the incident.”
Mumbai has an islanding scheme, introduced by Tata Power in 1981, which has since helped avoid close to 30 blackouts in the city by cutting it off the grid. The city has so far not faced power cuts as severe as the rest of the states due to low coal supplies. The rapid pickup in electricity demand, highest in close to four decades, has widened the demand-supply gulf in the country forcing states to go for power cuts.
Mumbai faced an unprecedented outage across the city and nearby areas in October 2020. Cyber security firm Recorded Future later said that a China-linked hacker group, RedEcho, may have been responsible for this. While this was denied by the state, recent developments have hinted that international hackers may be targeting Indian infrastructure.
On April 7, Union Minister for Power and New & Renewable Energy RK Singh said that hackers funded by the Chinese government have made two attempts to bring down Indian electricity distribution centres near Ladakh in the last eight months.
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