Grid Collapse
Power Ministry pulls up states
Ajay Banerjee
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, January 5
Just three days after the northern power grid collapsed, the Union Power Ministry has pulled the northern states for the lapse and has asked all of them to file a status report on adopting new anti-fog technology for protecting the grid. The information has been sought till January 8.

The Crisis Management Group of the Power Ministry met yesterday to take stock of situation, which arose due to the two successive failures in the northern power grid on January 2. The first one occurring around 3 am was caused due to fog/moisture that penetrated into older technology, porcelain-made “insulating discs”.

This was being taken very seriously in the ministry as it was avoidable had the states installed the new technology discs also known as insulators. The second gird failure failure occurring around 10 pm is blamed on a fire at a power sub-station at Bawana and is not connected to the fog.

The Tribune in its edition on January 4 had first pointed how the northern states were lagging behind in adopting new technology “discs” that are made of polymer and are resistant to fog, hence the grid collapsed. The states have not been able to either install the new technology or even maintain some of the lines leading to power failure.

The ministry’s body, the Northern Regional Power committee, has sent out a letter to Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Rajasthan, UP, Delhi and Chandigarh seeking information.

Each of the states has been asked the supply information on the total number of polymer insulators they require for the grid lines in their states; the number of available insulators in stock as on January 4. The NRPC also wants information on how more insulators have been ordered and when are they expected to arrive. The NRPC wants the information for all gird lines that is for 400 kv, 220 kv and 132 kv lines.

The polymer insulators or discs are the brown coloured and items that connect two high-tension wires on the grid.