How a ‘hotline crew’ prevents power cuts in Chennai
CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu Transmission Corporation (TANTRANSCO), has now upgraded its equipment to conduct repair work on 400kW transmission stations without cutting off power supply.
For the first time on Thursday, officials from TANTRANSCO demonstrated how these operations are carried out, to State Electricity Minister P Thangamani at the transmission sub-station at Alamathy, Tiruvallur district from where supply to Chennai is made.
In 1959, the State government first launched the ‘hotline crew’ which performed repair operations on live connections. However, such work was done only in relatively lower power distribution stations.
M Uthiramoorthy, a hotline crew member scaled the 400kW power line at Alamathy substation to fix a faulty clamp on Thursday. The air around him crackled loudly from electric induction as he approached the power line. Often power flow can cause an induced current, in this case eight amps, and voltage will be present on conductors that are nearby. Human body, too is a conductor.
In order to prevent being electrocuted, Uthiramoorthy wore a recently imported Faraday suit, made of a combination of a synthetic fibre called Nomex (75 per cent) and stainless steel (25 per cent). The suit, which acts as a good conductor of electricity, allows the induced current to flow through it, instead of his body. “If there is a disruption at a transmission substation, several distribution substations which draw power from it will have to shut down, leaving tens of thousands of houses without electricity for half a day. So, we take the risk of performing repairs when the connection is still live. Work gets over in 1.5 hours,” he said,
A full Faraday’s suit costs Rs 2.5 lakhs and weighs about 1.5 kg, said G Nagaraj, assistant executive engineer, hotline, Korattur.
Faults and potential problems in the lines are predicted ahead of disruption, so that it can be fixed with least damage, said Vikram Kapur, Chairman, adding that such risky operations are possible only because of the courage of the hotline crew.
Drones to find hot-spots
Tantransco has decided to procure drones that can be used to identify faults in transmission lines before disruptions, Vikram Kapur told Express. Drones fitted with high-resolution cameras that have 50x zoom, are programmed to identify ‘hot spots’ that need to be fixed.