Visakhapatnam: APTransco to replace transformer

Visakhapatnam: Three districts of North Andhra have suffered complete power cut for several hours due to the blast of APTransco’s transformer beside Power Grid substation at Vizag Steel Plant on Tuesday evening. APTransco Visakhapatnam zone chief engineer P. Surya Chandram said that the blast might have happened due to the rising temperature levels and also the excessive power load. However, the department has restored the power supply within two hours. “The department will replace new transformer within one day at a cost of around Rs 5 lakh. Meanwhile, we are also planning to reduce the load on the transformer by 60 MW. We will transform more power from East Godavari district to meet the requirement,” he said.

At present, about 700 MW of power is supplied to the three districts – Srikakulam, Vizianagaram and Visakhapatnam. With the sudden blast of the transformer, manufacturing units and industries have faced temporary problems in the city. Power outage has effected the functioning of Steel Plant and some units have experienced technical problems during the power cut. According to the company, they have not incurred any loss due to the short-term power cut. “The problem was rectified within 30-45 minutes. As we have sufficient backup to run all the units uninterruptedly, everything was back to normal in an hour. The production will not stop unless there is a calamity like Hudhud,” said a source.