To beat space crunch, discoms install pillar mounted, double-decker power stations in Delhi

NEW DELHI: Faced with space constraints in many congested pockets of the city, discoms have come up with innovative solutions like pillar mounted and double-decker power substations to augment the power infrastructure, discom officials said.
There are many areas in Delhi where discoms are facing challenges in network augmentation, primarily on account of non availability of sufficient space for installing and laying new power infrastructure, they said.
BSES discoms have been exploring all possibilities to find cost-effective, innovative and workable solutions for addressing the issue of space constraints, said officials of the discom.
"The discom has commissioned a first-of-its-kind 400 kVA pillar mounted compact sub-station, scalable to 630 kVA, in Vasant Kunj in South Delhi. It takes almost 1/5th the space of a conventional transformer," said the official.
This is the first-of-its-kind pillar mounted transformer to be installed in the national capital. The second such pillar mounted transformer is installed in Nehru Place, he said.
"Developed in-house, over the next few months, around 25 such pillar mounted transformers will be installed in several congested areas," he said.
Apart from this, BSES is also installing double-decker substations in heavily congested areas. It is a 630 KVA substation, which also helps to strengthen the power supply in the congested areas.
Measuring 6.25 square metres vis-à-vis 20 square metres for its conventional counterpart, it also takes much less space and 14 of them have been installed so far in the city, he added.
Earlier, the BSES had installed Delhi's first state-of-the-art packaged Grid or Electronic House (Electronic Compacted Switchgear) in Krishna Nagar, a congested area in East Delhi.
Incorporating the latest German technology and made by Siemens, this is 'all-in-one', 'plug and play' compact packaged Grid, takes around 40 percent less space than a conventional grid.
"Availability of space remains the most viable solution, for which discoms have been writing to various stakeholders with some degree of success," officials said.
Even though space has been made available to the discoms in wide number of areas, there are still over 1000-1200 pockets across Delhi, where it remains a challenge, they added.