City unplugged at the crack of dawn

Although Mumbai boasts of an islanding system that ought to provide almost uninterrupted power supply, a loss of electricity was witnessed in the the south and north Mumbai region for over 40 mintues early this morning from 6.11 am.

"The Tata Power islanding system insulates Mumbai from tripping disturbances when faults occur in the MSEGC system resulting in loss of generation in the grid. However, the occurrence today was a close-in fault in the MSEGC system that is located adjacent to the Trombay plant itself.",said Tata Power in a release.

Tata Power was able to restore power supply in a phase wise manner, the release said.

"Supply to the Railway network was partially resumed at 6.35 am. Restoration of power supply to the BEST for south Mumbai started at 6.58 am and was completed by 7.25 am. Supply of power to north Mumbai was partially affected for some time in order to stabilise the system."it added.

The cause of the tripping of MSEB lines is still under investigation.