Power trips over excessive AC use to beat stifling heat

KOLKATA: A record use of air-conditioners to beat the soaring temperature and high humidity while watching World Cup matches led to localised faults, resulting in power cuts, leaving people fuming, literally. Though the partly cloudy skies on Tuesday kept the temperature in check, power utilities CESC and WBSEDCL warned of more blackouts, missed matches and stifling nights if the moderate heatwave condition persisted.



From Behala’s Pathakpara to Garfa, Baghajatin and Golf Green to Tala and Baguiati, blackouts intermittently dogged localities on a day the mercury had soared to record levels.

Around 9.30pm on Monday when the Belgium team was beginning to threaten the Panama goal in the second half, Behala’s Pathakpara plunged into darkness. By the time power returned around 10.15pm, Belgium had scored three goals. Everyone was frustrated but thankful the service had been restored ahead of the England-Tunisia match. But power went off again as the match was nearing half-time. “After an hour, everyone forgot about the match. We prayed for the power to be restored so that we could get some respite from the oppressive heat. All residents were up and about, walking in the alley or on their terraces. We tried to call the CESC helpline but all lines were busy. When we finally got through after almost an hour, the customer care executive said a fault had occurred and it would take at least two hours to restore supply. It was around 4am the electricity was restored,” said Pathakpara Road resident Nivedita Basu.

At Garfa’s Patwari Para, the power cut lasted two hours. At Santoshpur and at Golf Green, households reported voltage fluctuation. In north Kolkata’s Nilmani Mitra Row, one phase went off for an hour. An unusual number of power cuts were also reported from peripheral areas, such as Sonarpur, New Barrackpore and Bally, as snags and trips ruled the night.

Wary of blackouts during World Cup matches, state power minister Sovan Deb Chattopadhyay convened an emergency meeting on Tuesday. But both officials of both CESC and WBSEDCL, which serve Kolkata and rest of the state, said they could do little to remedy the scene as unprecedented high AC usage was leading to localised faults. In Kolkata, midnight electricity demand has shot up by 200 MW since the World Cup began. Around 80% of increased demand is owing to the use of an additional 80,000 ACs of 1.5-tonne capacity. “The excitement of World Cup is keeping football enthusiasts glued to TVs well past midnight. The latenight match ends around 1.45am. While it is usually an allfamily affair in the evenings, the late-night matches are mostly watched by serious fans, while the rest of the family retire for the day. Given the weather condition, homes with multiple ACs are using them simultaneously in the living and bedroom. This is tripping the fuse in MCBs at homes, in pillar boxes and in the odd cases, transformers,” CESC vice-president (distribution) Avijit Ghosh said.

But he claimed CESC had made all preparations for the World Cup and summer and estimated the demand to soar to 2,2000 MW in June and 1,850 MW in July, when rain is supposed to bring down the temperature and reduce AC usage.