Three advanced substations set to bring relief to power users in south Chennai

Chennai With the demand for electricity touching 3,750 mega watt (MW) this year, an all-time record,

With the demand for electricity touching 3,750 mega watt (MW) this year, an all-time record, and soon expected to cross 4,000 MW, power managers in the city are speeding up work on three important substations in south Chennai to strengthen the distribution network.

The old substations are being upgraded from conventional to gas-insulated substation to improve the power distribution in several localities such as Adyar, Thiruvanmiyur, Taramani, Velachery, Madipakkam, Pallikaranai and Rajiv Gandhi Salai of the Information Technology (IT) corridor. Also, the GIS technology helps in utilising space to the maximum. 

A senior official of Tangedco said the agency had taken into consideration the fact that the power demand had touched the maximum of 3,763 MW (on June 14) and an all-time high consumption of 82.96 million units (MU) while planning for the future. Two important substations, which have reached their peak capacity, are being upgraded and a new one is set to come up. The Taramani substation is being converted from a 230 kV to 400 kV and the Thiruvanmiyur substation into a 230 kV substation from 33/11 kV. The Velachery section is set to get a new 110 kV substation near the private mall located on Velachery Main Road in addition to an existing similar capacity substation.

The work on the three substations is in various stages of construction with Taramani and Thiruvanmiyur facilities set to be commissioned by the end of this year. The Velachery substation would be completed before March next year, the senior official said.

The three substations being constructed at a cost of ₹530 crore would have several positive features such as preventing transmission loss, availability of alternative power sources in case of any major failure, and being the GIS substations, they would help in overcoming the problem of flooding.

The 400 kV substation at Taramani, which is set to make the power available directly from the grid, would help not only solve severe voltage issues in the entire south Chennai area but also allow more substations to be added to the network.

The senior Tangedco official said the upgradation of the Taramani and Thiruvanmiyur substations located within a 5-km radius will bring down line loss drastically and make way for providing alternative supply to 110-kV substations in case of any major power failures.