Power outages at several places as Mohali’s peak-hour consumption crosses 1,000MW

Amid rising humidity levels, the peak electricity consumption of Mohali district crossed the 1,000MW mark on Thursday, leading to power disruptions at several places due to load on transformers.

The district, which has around 19 grid sub-stations, gets power supply from Rajpura and Rupnagar plants.

In the past, the average demand had remained between 900 and 1000MW even during peak summers. On June 22, however, the collective peak-hour load of six sectors, including Mohali-1, Kharar, Banur, Mohali-2, Lalru and Derabassi, reached 1,125 MW, as per the data compiled by the Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (PSPCL) and Punjab State Transmission Corporation Limited (PSTCL).

Mohali-1, which includes the old sectors, industrial units and areas around Sunny Enclave topped with 334MW of power consumption, while Mohali-2 which includes Aero City and relatively newer sectors consumed 118 MW power load, additional superintendent engineer PSTCL Akshay Garg said.

No shortage of power, maintains department

Under fire over power outages at several places, PSPCL superintendent engineer (SE) Satwinder Singh Sehmbi maintained that there was no shortage of power supply in Mohali and the incidents of power disruptions were primarily due to lose connections, fire caused due to sudden rise in the load on transformers and tripping due to falling of tree branches on power cables.

He reiterated that power shortage was not the reason behind power cuts reported in various parts of the city on Thursday.

An official of the power transmission department, requesting anonymity, said the sudden use of power supply puts a load on transformers. Some of the transformers developed snag and caught fire.

Mayor submits memo

Meanwhile, Mohali deputy mayor Kuljit Singh Bedi gave a memorandum to electricity officials, demanding an increase in the number of linemen in the city, and corrective measures with regards to electricity supply. He said the incidents are rising due to lack of staff for maintenance of snags.

Residents hassled

As per residents, power outages have become a regular feature in the city and respective governments have made big claims but failed to fix the problem.

“For the past many years, the city continues to reel under frequent and unscheduled power cuts particularly due inadequate infrastructure, acute staff shortage, poor maintenance, and failure to restructure staff as per consumer growth, amid the sultry weather conditions. Over the years, the city has grown which has put an additional burden on the existing infrastructure. Overloaded power transformers, distribution and transmission lines as well as breakdowns in the infrastructure have worsened the situation,” said Ravinder Singh, a resident of 3B-2.

According to Riya Bawa, a Phase 5 resident, there was a prolonged power outage on Thursday, both during the day and night. Although power supply was restored around 8am on Friday, the power went out again after an hour due to load shedding. “Despite several attempts to reach the officials of the Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (PSPCL), none of the numbers were accessible. Enduring this hot and humid weather without electricity is extremely challenging,” said Bawa.

The residents of Shiva Colony and Victoria Enclave Zirakpur staged a protest against PSPCL authorities following the power outage.