CHENNAI: Several central districts and Puducherry suffered power cut of nearly an hour on Friday evening. Officials said it was due to tripping of the Tiruchy-Alundur 400 KVS substation. Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corporation (TANGEDCO) sources told Express that due to the tripping, the Neyveli grid collapsed and as a result power supply to Tiruchy, Puducherry, Tanjore, Cudalore and Villupuram were affected.
Sources said that Neyveli Thermal Power Station unit 1 and 2 which is one of the main power source to Tamil Nadu and Puducherry got pulled out. “Our officials swung into action and now power supply is restored in towns and majority of rural areas,” said sources. “We are working to restore power supply in Cuddalore and Tiruchy border areas,” TANGEDCO sources said.
Places like Puducherry, Cuddalore and Thanjavur suffered around 90 minutes of power outage while in other places like Tiruchy the outage (7.15 pm-8 pm) was restored within 45 minutes. Meanwhile, NLC sources said that it would technically take some time to fully restore power since it is a gradual process.
“NLC production units got pulled out due to grid disturbance. This was the reason for power cut. There was no fault on the part of the NLC. The NLC director (power) rushed to the thermal stations and sped up the process. Technically it takes some time to fully resume supplying power because it has to be done gradually. Everything would be normal in an hour,” said an NLC source.