October 09, 2023 06:22 pm | Updated 09:19 pm IST - Visakhapatnam
The automated substation at Vizag Outer Harbour in Visakhapatnam. | Photo Credit: V. RAJU Unit Substation
The State Energy Department has proposed automated substations to provide uninterrupted power supply to consumers along the city’s coastal stretch, including the proposed Chief Minister’s camp office at Rushikonda here. The Rushikonda substation is more advanced than the automated substations, catering to the needs of around 2,000 consumers in its jurisdiction. No additional expenditure required for the conversion to the automated system.
After getting successful results from the Outer Harbour substation commissioned in August, the department under AP Eastern Power Distribution Company Limited (APEPDCL) is gearing up for conversion of existing indoor substations at different locations, and also establishing new container substations like one such at the Rushikonda, where underground power supply network installation work has been completed.
The department chose the coastal areas only because of high humidity and frequent outages due to damage to power lines and salinity in the atmosphere.
“Yes, to meet the future power demand and provide hassle-free services to the consumers in the city, we are proposing more automated container substations, as site availability is a major constraint for new indoor construction. Also, we are converting some indoor substations as automated substations. The container substation at Rushikonda will be ready to operate on an automated system with advanced features, possibly from October 15,” APEPDCL Director (Operations) A.V.V.S. Pratap told The Hindu.
Explaining the functioning of the automated substation, another APEDCL official said that in the automated system, power supply is restored in 90 seconds, where it takes at least 15 to 30 minutes in the manual system. The automated system can be remotely monitored and controlled by the team sitting at the APEPDCL corporate office at Seethammadhara here.
“We have about 9,000 consumers under the automated substation in the Harbour area. We chose this place because of high humidity and frequent power outages. Large power consumers like Visakhapatnam Container Terminal Pvt. Ltd. also falls under this Harbour station. We are in the process of converting four indoor substations at KGH, Haritha, Pandurangapuram and Town Kotha Road into automated substations, which will benefit around 30,000 consumers,” the official said.
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