Fire at substation leads to major power outage in Chennai

Several parts of Chennai reeled under a sudden power outage due to a fire incident which caused sequential faults on both feeders at the Manali substation in Chennai.

Power supply was, however, restored by the Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corporation (TANGEDCO), which responded promptly, by rerouting supply through alternate pathways, an official said on Friday.

The cascading fault on the second redundant feeder Alamatty of Manali Substation caused damage to the switch structure, he said.

The affected substation has been repaired on a war-footing and regular power supply has been restored, an official release said.

The Manali substation is an important power hub of Chennai supplying electricity to major parts of the city. There are two charger sources namely Alamatty and NCTPS II exclusively to supply power to this substation. These were designed to provide 100 per cent power to the sub-station.

On September 12, at around 9.58 pm, a massive fire broke out at the Almatty substation and this led to subsequent blackout of two 400 KV power sources (Alamatty and NCTPS II) supplying power to the Manali substation.

The fire was extinguished immediately. However, due to the failure of the dual power sources, Mylapore, Luz, Santhome, Nungambakkam, Royapuram, Tondiarpet, Tollgate, Saidapet, Vyasarpadi, Sembium, Kolathur, Periyar Nagar, Madhavaram, Puzhal, Red Hills, Kodungaiyur, Anna Salai, George Town, Egmore and other areas were affected.

The Tamil Nadu Electricity Board took steps to provide alternative power supply and cleared the inconvenience caused to the public, the release said.

The fire had caused extensive damage at the substation. "Though there was a delay in the electricity restoration, the work was accelerated on a war-footing by providing power through alternative routes," the release said.

The restoration started at 11 pm and by this morning all the affected areas gradually obtained the power supply.

Despite sequential faults on both feeders from NCTPS II to Manali 400/230KV, TANGEDCO swiftly ensured uninterrupted power to the city by stepping up 230KV to 400KV and rerouting power through Pulianthope. This was a testament to resilience and efficiency, TANGEDCO said in a post on the social media platform X.

"Swift action by TANGEDCO. Within a few hours, the dedicated team at TANGEDCO worked tirelessly to resolve the fault at NCTPS II, ensuring the Manali feeding the city was restored to its original healthy condition by 6 am this morning," the state government-owned corporation said.