Power outages at nights give denizens sleepless nights

Chennai: Residents in Velachery, Perungudi, Thoraipakkam, Medavakkam, Chrompet, Kodambakkam, T Nagar, Korattur, Kolathur and Perambur had power cuts on Saturday night.

Parts of Korattur, Kolathur and Surapet witnessed power outages during midnight for about an hour after a cable faulted at the Korattur substation. Back feeding from another substation also took time.

“We’ve been facing voltage fluctuation and power cuts every night from the onset of summer. On Saturday night, the power went off multiple times starting at 11 pm and finally restored at around 2.30 am,” said Williams, a resident of Surapet.

At Lakshmipuram, Kolathur, the power went off for almost an hour. TANGEDCO sources said that the power disruption on Saturday night at Lakshmipuram, Korattur and Surapet happened due to a 33kv cable fault at Annai Nagar Substation.

“The cable fault happened due to overloading caused by increased use of ACs. When we tried to back feed through another line, it failed in the first attempt as all lines are overloaded at night. Hence it took about 45 minutes to restore power,” sources added.

Parts of Thoraipakkam also witnessed a power cut last night after the power cable was damaged. “Calls to TANGEDCO’s call centre never get connected. We have to wait for a long time,” said a Thoraipakkam resident.

A senior TANGEDCO official said that though the state’s power demand has come down in the last few days due to continuous holidays, the city’s power demand continues to remain high, due to an increase in AC usage in the sweltering heat.

“As most city residents have one or more ACs in their homes, the power demand peaks at around 11 pm every day. This overloads feeder lines or trips distribution transformers that results in power cuts,” the official said.