THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Officials of the Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB) have cited ‘’internal problems’’ as the reason for the fire in the current transformer (CT) at the 110 kV sub-station at Paruthippara on Sunday evening.
‘’The damage was caused by internal problems in the CT. CTs are used to measure electric current. Tests were routinely conducted on this unit,’’ N M Babukuttan, Chief Engineer, Transmission (South), said.
According to him, the unit was over ten years old, but that should not pose a problem as they are used without problems up to 25 years.
Three firefighting units battled for 40 minutes on Sunday evening to douse the fire which broke after an explosion at the CT at 6.58 pm. At the time, it was assumed that a short-circuit had caused the damage. No other equipment at the sub-station, which is a crucial part of the electricity supply in the city, was damaged in the explosion and fire.
No casualties also were reported, but many areas in the city went without power for more than half-an-hour following the incident.