Rains are here, but Chennai yet to get respite from power cuts

CHENNAI: Despite brief spells of rain and cloudy weather bringing respite from the heat, several parts of Chennai continued to experience power outages on Friday night (June 12).

After days of intense heat, the city received rainfall on Friday, with overcast conditions helping bring down temperatures and offering much-needed relief to residents. The drop in temperature also reduced Chennai's peak power demand to 4,408 MW on Friday, compared with the all-time high of 5,014 MW recorded on Wednesday night.

However, the fall in demand did little to ease the situation for a section of consumers, who faced power cuts ranging from 29 minutes to more than eight hours, according to the power outage abstract report released by the Tamil Nadu Power Distribution Corporation Limited (TNPDCL) on social media. Of the 21 outages reported across the State, 11 occurred in Chennai.

The longest outage was reported on First Narayana Street and Kumarappa Street in Chennai Central, where power supply remained disrupted for 8 hours and 32 minutes after the Seven Wells RMU tripped at 5.28 am.

Most of the disruptions were attributed to low-tension (LT) cable faults, feeder trips and equipment failures. Power supply has since been restored in all affected areas.

A series of cable-related faults affected several neighbourhoods in central Chennai. Purasawalkam witnessed a power cut lasting 4 hours and 45 minutes due to a 120-mm LT cable fault. In Pudupet, a 120-mm LT cable fire disrupted supply for 4 hours and 40 minutes, while residents of Nandanam and Triplicane faced outages of 3 hours and 45 minutes each because of LT cable faults.

In Chennai South-I zone, residents of UI Colony were without electricity for 3 hours and 20 minutes after the Rangarajapuram 11-kV feeder tripped. Royala Nagar later experienced a 37-minute outage due to a Ramapuram feeder trip, while KK Nagar recorded a 29-minute disruption following a fault in the 110-kV Guindy feeder.

In Chennai Central zone, Otteri faced a power interruption of 3 hours and 20 minutes owing to another 120-mm LT cable fault.

K Aravind, a resident of Aspirin Gardens in Kilpauk, said the power supply was interrupted around 1 am and was restored an hour later, affecting residents during the night.

"We have been routinely facing power outages during the night. TNPDCL should address the issue," he said.

A TNPDCL official said that they had formed 10 monitoring teams and deployed personnel to restore power supply in case of outages. "We are taking steps to improve the distribution network to avoid faults due to overloading," the official added.