A major fire broke out at the Karnataka Power Transmission Corporation Ltd. (KPTCL) 66 kV power station at Anand Rao Circle on Monday afternoon, sending officials of the transmission company and Fire and Emergency Services into a tizzy.
Power supply to many areas in the Central Business District, including the power centre Vidhana Soudha and Vikasa Soudha, was affected.
With the legislation session in progress, the officials were on high alert. Power supply to Vidhana Soudha was immediately provided from C Station, near Cantonment.
Manjula Naik, MD, KPTCL, told The Hindu that prima facie, it appeared that the 20 MVA transformer had a fault and caught fire when the breaker system failed to trip. When the 24-year-old transformer caught fire, it spread to the adjacent transformer. It took over half an hour for the Fire and Emergency Services personnel to control the blaze.
“This is the first time that such an incident has occurred. Following the fire, power supply to Vidhana Soudha, Vikasa Soudha, Cauvery Bhavan, Madhav Nagar and few other areas was affected,” she said, and added that the loss due to the fire was pegged at ₹5 crore.
The blaze had also damaged wires of another transformer at the site. “The third transformer is being repaired. Meanwhile, the fourth transformer will be pressed into service. By the end of Monday, around 70% of the power requirement will be taken care of,” she said.
The two transformers that caught fire will have to be removed for repairs. If they can’t be repaired, they will have to be junked. To ensure uninterrupted power supply to Vidhana Soudha and other government establishments in the CBD, in view of the legislature sessions, KPTCL will replace the faulty transformer with a new one by February 26.
The two transformers were transmitting around 60 MW. While the two remaining ones will be able to transmit nearly 45 MW, for the remaining, Bangalore Electricty Supply Company (Bescom) will have to change over the load from other stations, such as Victoria Hospital station or Telecom station.
Admitting that power supply could be an issue for a few more days, Ms. Naik said that Bescom would probably have to enforce two to three hours of load-shedding in CBD. “Once the new transformer is installed and commissioned, the power supply situation will be normalised by February 27,” Ms. Naik added. Bescom officials said the situation was ‘under control’.