Even though all major industries, commercial hubs and officers are shut, Bengaluru is seeing frequent power outages.
The nationwide lockdown and the consequent drop in demand for power doesn’t seem to have changed Bengaluru’s power cut situation. There are still many power cuts with many areas getting no power supply for more than two hours at a stretch. BESCOM (Bangalore Electricity Supply Company) helplines and social media channels are flooded with such complaints on a daily basis. In fact, on April 13 afternoon, at a single point of time, seven sub-divisions in the city reported problems with transformers and this resulted in power outages for more than three hours in vast parts of the city’s south and eastern neighborhoods. Speaking with TNM, various BESCOM engineers working on the ground said these outages are mostly local issues involving transformers or cable faults. “These are not problems which are associated with increased load, but also with the rain and wind there are issues with snapped cables and other problems. These issues will be sorted once all the major transmission lines are underground. We have already started taking some of the power lines below the ground to negate the effect of rain and wind or tree feelings in general,” a Superintendent Engineer working with BESCOM said. A senior managerial staff at BESCOM confirmed, “Supply side there is no problem during this time. But we are facing unscheduled power outages due to technical problems.” Other than this, BESCOM staff refused to pinpoint the causes of the frequent power cuts even without rain or strong winds. Rishu Garg, power sector research scientist working with Bengaluru-based Center for Study of Science, Technology and Policy (CSTEP) said in their research they have found these problems on lack of proper network infrastructure and this seems to be a perennial problem. Rishu said, “The major issues resulting in power cuts in any area are power shortage and lack of proper network infrastructure. In Bengaluru, power shortage does not seem to be an issue, as the state is able to procure enough power to meet the rising demand in the city. Hence, lack of proper infrastructure and inadequate operation and maintenance of the network are causing frequent power cuts in Bangalore.” She said not only does Inadequate network maintenance lead to additional cost for electricity supply companies like BESCOM, due to the frequent replacement of assets; it is also one of the reasons for high technical losses in the system. Most of the problem, she said, can be fixed by ensuring that the transformers at the neighbourhood level are run at an optimum level and prevent breakdowns through effective monitoring and maintenance. She explained, “The situation can be improved by controlling the technical losses in the system through effective energy audit. Energy audit is a mechanism to identify the points of leakages in the system by comparing the energy received and consumed in a network. Energy audit at the transformer level would further help in proactive monitoring of health of the transformer on a regular basis. Issues can be dealt with at an early stage before a breakdown occurs.” She added, “Frequent breakdown of a transformer indicates inadequate monitoring and maintenance of the transformer. The distribution transformer helps in last-mile voltage conversion, so that power reaches end consumers seamlessly. However, most power cuts occur due to fault/damage to the transformers and service lines. There is a lack of periodic inspection to record the status of transformers. The service lines and transformers are attended to through complaint-based maintenance only when a fault occurs. Further, overhead lines are usually not protected by insulation, so anything coming in contact with or even close to an overhead line would become a direct pathway for an electric current, resulting in electrocution, injuries, and power outages.” To point out the extent of losses these lapses cause, she said that for the financial year 2018-19, BESCOM spent Rs 145 crore for the replacement of faulty transformers with new transformers. This expenditure, she said, could have been avoided, if effective monitoring and maintenance of transformers was in place. Further the losses in the distribution network could be reduced to less than 10% through network strengthening and better management. This she says impacts the reliability of BESCOM when it comes to electric suppliers of other major cities. A survey published in April 2018 by Pune-based non-profit Prayas Energy Group found Bengaluru had 26 ‘no average supply hours per location’ in four areas for the month, compared to Chennai and Delhi which had three average no supply hours per location out of four and nine survey locations. Speaking on this, Muralidhar Rao, Vice President of Bangalore Apartment Federation and a policy analyst, blamed the state government for the present situation even when it comes to issues with meeting higher demand. “What is happening in Karnataka’s power sector is near financial anarchy with the government not clearing massive amounts of farmer subsidy to the electric supply companies who in turn are not clearing their huge dues to the KPTCL (Karnataka Power Transmission Corporation Limited) leading to a cycle of debts,” he said. He added, “If not for this dismal scenario, KPTCL has the capacity to meet the entire power needs of the state. As such, it's nothing short of criminal that the state is forced to buy power from elsewhere at exorbitant rates, even as KPTCL is starved of its funds. This is adding tremendously to its costs, which ultimately is being passed on to the consumer.” This cycle of financial mismanagement he said is responsible for functioning of both the power transmission and supplier companies. And delayed salaries for contract workers in both the esoms and KPTCL may result in these workers to skip work from time to time.
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