MUMBAI: Shaken by last week’s power outage in Mumbai, known for uninterrupted supply, Maharashtra government has announced a 1,000-2,000MW expansion of gas-based power plants in Uran in two years to take care of the fast increasing power demand. The 672MW gas-based power plant of state power generation company (MSPGCL) at Uran generates 350MW.
Power sector authorities concluded that fast-rising demand in Mumbai against its insufficient generation capacity has made even islanding (separation of Mumbai grid from regional or national grid to ensure uninterrupted supply to city) unworkable.
The state has appointed an independent eight-member committee comprising engineering experts and IIT professors, other than the three-member MERC committee set up to probe reasons for the failure and suggest measures to avoid recurrences.
State energy minister Nitin Raut visited the Uran plant on Thursday and directed the authorities to prepare a detailed project report to complete expansion within two years. “During peak hours Mumbai needs 2,800MW, which will rise to 5,000MW by 2030. Presently, Mumbai generates 1,00MW. Considering the power outage, it is necessary to enhance Mumbai’s generation capacity,” said Raut.
The state technical audit committee headed by Prof B G Fernandes of IIT-B, includes Dr M V Aware of VNIT, Nagpur, Dr Faruk A S Kazi of VJTI, advisor to MSEB Holding company Uttam Zalte, chief electrical inspector Dinesh Khonde, Prof S A Soman of IIT-B, Satish Chavan, director (operations) MSEDCL, and Prof Anil Kulkarni of IIT-B. The MERC committee led by retired IAS officer Dr S K Goel includes V Ramakrishna, former member (power systems), Civil Engineering Association, and Kazi.
Kazi is common on both committees. While the state committee has to submit its report in seven days, MERC’s committee has three months.
“It is necessary to find out what happened and what needs to be done at the individual stakeholder level and collectively, and at the systems level to avoid any recurrence. Also, it is necessary to examine if delay in implementation of recommendations/suggestions of earlier committees had a bearing on the grid failure. Long-term plans for infrastructure augmentation/development do not seem to have materialized in toto as expected. Also, there are additional provisions for Mumbai, such as the islanding system, for which standby charges being paid for by Mumbai consumers, besides infrastructure cost. It is a reasonable expectation that the consumers get reliable power without such major grid incidents, hence the probe committee,” a MERC order over its public hearings said, urging utilities to submit internal investigation reports too.