Climatic changes caused a major power failure across large sections of Northern India on Friday morning after several transmission lines of the Northern Grid tripped. The result was nearly 10 hours of powercuts across Uttar Pradesh, Delhi and Haryana and a series of disruptions across the Northern Railway network.“The powercuts started soon after midnight. Transmission lines started tripping from 1 am onwards and continued across 49 lines. The problem became particularly acute around 7 am when electricity demand is quite high. While the problem started from Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh, it soon engulfed Muradnagar, Pakhi and Agra, before engulfing the entire National Capital Region stretching even further into Hissar in Haryana,” said a senior official of the Northern Region Load Despatch Centre (NRLDC). Officials said the tripping started because of pollution and fog.“During winter months pollution and fog condenses and settles down on insulators in high humidity causing transmission lines to trip. The lines are given hot washes to keep the pollutants from condensing on it. However, such a situation does not usually arise in March when showers ensure that the deposits are washed away. But this year there has been no rain and the fog has stayed on. While we kept restoring the tripping lines, others kept tripping elsewhere almost simultaneously,” the official added.While the usual demand across the Northern Grid is between 23,000 to 24,000 MW, the supply on Friday morning fell to nearly 19,000 MW. The shortfall led to prolonged powercuts and hit train operations from 5 am onwards. Northern Railways reported service disruptions on over 23 trains with delays ranging form two to five. Services were only restored by late afternoon.
