Northern grid power failures don't affect Delhi Metro

New Delhi, May 9 (UNI) In the last six months the northern grid has collapsed twice but on both occasions Delhi Metro Rail Corp's train services remained unaffected! The northern grid had tripped twice for different periods of time in the last six months but this did not affect Delhi Metro's train services, DRMC Director (Rolling Stock&Electricals) Satish Kumar told UNI.

''Each station has its own invertors and generators to ensure that trains do not stop, there is adequate lighting, proper ventilation and so that passenger evacution can be carried out, if needed, without any hitch.'' Revealing why there were no power failures in metro, he said power to underground line was being provided from Gas Turbine Power Station (Indraprastha), which was considered the most reliable source of power supply in Delhi. It has the facility of islanding itself in case of failure of the northern grid.

Power for each of the three lines had been ensured from minimum two sources. And when one went off, the other took over completely, he added.

''DMRC also receives power from double circuit out of which only one circuit is used at a time, besides Delhi Metro maintains its own sub-stations.'' DMRC's power supply demand was met by five sub-stations that were located along its three operational lines at present.

There were two sub-stations on Line I -- at Kashmere Gate and Rithala, Line II had one sub-station at New Delhi, and Line III had two sub-stations -- at Subhash Nagar and Dwarka.

All the sub-stations were of 66 KV capacity except the one at Kashmere Gate, which had a capacity of 220 KV. Delhi Transco fed power to these sub-stations.

Power supply of 66 KV was normally considered standard for breaking it into 33 KV and 25 KV to run trains and stations respectively.

The sub-station at Kashmere Gate could cater to the needs of both Line I as well as Line II in case of any failure. Similarly, substation at New Delhi could cater to the needs of both Line II as well as Line III in case of any failure. Rest of the sub-stations fed their respective lines only.

Besides this, DMRC had also tied up with the Northern Railways and had set up a 'feeder post' at Shahadara, which could take care of extreme emergency situation and could make trains to move at least to their respective stations on line I.

UNI IP PK KN1612