Amaravati, Sep 25 The recent downpour severely affected electricity infrastructure in North Andhra, covering Srikakulam, Vizianagaram, Visakhapatnam and parts of East Godavari districts, with power supply swiftly restored, a senior Energy Department official said on Friday.
K Vijayanand, Special Chief Secretary, Energy, said sustained gale winds of 55 to 65 kmph, gusting up to 75 kmph, accompanied by torrential rain, triggered tree falls and transmission-line flashovers across several districts.
“The Government of Andhra Pradesh has swiftly overcome the extensive disruptions caused to the state’s power network following the landfall of a Deep Depression near Kalingapatnam in North Andhra,” Vijayanand said in a press release.
He said continuous torrential rain damaged 139 sub-stations, 121 33-kV feeders, 654 11-kV feeders, 803 33/11-kV poles, 758 LT poles and 306 distribution transformers across 36 mandals and 2,244 villages in North Andhra.
Field teams were mobilised with pre-positioned materials, cranes and emergency response vehicles, restoring all 139 affected sub-stations and 644 of the 654 affected 11-kV feeders by 10 pm on September 24, he said.
As a result, power supply was restored to more than one lakh affected non-agricultural consumers, including domestic and commercial connections.
Of the 64,929 affected agricultural connections, power supply had been restored to 63,051, while field teams continued to work round the clock to energise the remaining 1,878 services in severely waterlogged and inaccessible areas, Vijayanand said.
In the southern part of the state, minor localised disruptions in Kadapa, Kurnool and Nandyala districts were resolved within 30 minutes, he said.
Anticipating the severity of the weather conditions, round-the-clock emergency control rooms were activated across the state.
Vijayanand said disaster preparedness and rapid engineering interventions helped avert major damage to the state’s Extra High Tension (EHT) network.
Although severe gales and rain affected 26 EHT feeders and five power transformers across various operational circles, emergency restoration teams had already energised 18 feeders and two critical power transformers, with work on the remaining assets nearing completion, he said.
Despite floodwaters inundating the 132-kV common-point sub-station in Visakhapatnam, engineering crews immediately deployed heavy-duty dewatering systems to pump out the water, Vijayanand said.
The Transmission Corporation of Andhra Pradesh (APTRANSCO) established alternate grid-routing arrangements to maintain power supply to connected areas, he said.
(PTI News)
