This story is from May 30, 2020

Peak power demand 40% less, but outages continue in Noida

Peak power demand 40% less, but outages continue in Noida
Photo used for representational purpose only
NOIDA: Noida’s current power demand is almost 40% less of what it was the same time last year, with most offices closed and industries operating below capacity, but the city has been witnessing widespread power outages this week, continuing into Friday, because of its failure to overhaul the electricity infrastructure.
By now, Noida was supposed to have a modern transmission network that ran underground, which was a promise chief minister Yogi Adityanath had made after coming to power in 2017, underlining the city’s importance to UP’s industrial ambitions.
But power lines in much of the city still remain above the surface, lines in the older sectors are fragile to vagaries of weather and transformers blow out in storm and rain. Continuous power is essential for the lakhs of people dependent on personal Wi-Fis for working from home.
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Power cuts between 8pm and 12am on Thursday caused resentment among residents and what came as an insult to injury was the response from power discom officials, as most did not pick up their calls. “On Friday also, there was a two-hour outage in the morning,” said Anju Pachauri, a resident of Sector 36.
In sectors 25 and 28, residents complained about intermittent power cuts all through the day, especially following light showers or an increase in wind speed. “Wind speed of 15km or rain means we will have no power,” said Commander N Mahajan (retd), a resident of Jal Vayu Vihar in Sector 25.
While the CM had sanctioned Rs 26 crore earlier this year for the revamp of the power infrastructure of Noida, meant to be a ‘no-power cut’ city, residents said that the government’s claim of providing uninterrupted electricity supply had fallen flat. “It’s clear that no maintenance or upgrade work of power infrastructure has been done this year,” said Rajeev Chowdhary, RWA general secretary of Sector 35.

Last year, the peak summer demand was 1,200 MW in the twin cities. And earlier this year, the Uttar Pradesh Power Transmission Limited (UPPTL) had said that it would be ready with 2,400 MW capacity transmission facilities once the power infra upgrade work was complete by March. This year, with malls, industries and offices closed, Noida’s current demand is about 750-800 MW.
“But there has been been daily disruption of power supply for the past couple of days. Also, pruning of trees has not yet taken place. As a result with light showers and winds, there are sparks flying. We had over six-hour outage early this week and expect major problem when the monsoon arrives,” said Shashi Vaid, the chairman of Arjun Vihar Residents Welfare Association (AVRWA) that caters to sectors 28, 29 and 37.
VN Singh, the chief zonal engineer of Noida power department, told TOI that execution of power infrastructure upgrade work was underway as per schedule to boost the supply in the city till January-February this year, but the lockdown derailed the same.
“Noida’s current demand is about 750-800 MW. This will increase once the industries begin operations fully. There is no supply shortage and the outages are mostly a result of local faults, which could have been largely checked had the work of changing old, rusting infrastructure been completed. It has now got delayed by two to three months due to the lockdown,” said Singh.
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