NEW DELHI, May 12:
The Power Ministry on Wednesday said it has taken proactive measures to ensure 24X7 power supply to oxygen plants in the country amid the deadly second wave of the pandemic.
The ministry is monitoring the power supply to 73 major identified oxygen plants across the country out of which 13 plants supply oxygen to NCR, it said in a statement.
In view of the manifold rise in oxygen demand for both medical facilities and for home treatment of patients, the ministry has undertaken a number of proactive preventive and remedial measures to ensure uninterrupted power supply to oxygen plants by the state utilities, it said.
The position of power supplies to all such plants is reviewed every day at the level of Power Secretary along with the Energy Secretaries of states concerned; CMD, POSOCO on a case by case basis.
All issues related to 24×7 power supply to oxygen plants are discussed threadbare during the daily reviews and interventions are planned and executed in a time bound manner through the state discoms aided by Power System Operation Corporation (POSOCO) and Central Electricity Authority, the ministry statement said.
The ministry has also set up a round the clock Control Room.
As part of corrective action strategy, a 24-hour oxygen plant control room and an Internal Control Group have been set up at REC Ltd.
Disruptions , if any, in power supply are analysed by POSOCO together with various utilities in states (STU & DISCOM), SLDCs (state load dispatch centres) and POWERGRID, and specific preventive advisories are issued,it added.
The ministry also takes preventive measures for ensuring 24×7 power supply.
As part of preventive action, advisories have been issued to states for best practices adoption to all electricity lines feeding the plants. These include building of suitable redundancies, and isolation of feeders supplying electricity to the oxygen plants.
Some of the corrective measures advised included resetting of relays at the Barotiwala plant (Himachal Pradesh) and Kerala Mineral & Metal plant; and, laying of a 132kV underground cable for the oxygen plant at Salequi (Uttarakhand) in the stretch prone to bird fault.
POSOCO has also been tasked with carrying out a technical audit of power supply of each oxygen plant particularly those supplying oxygen to NCR, it said. (PTI)
Follow our WhatsApp channel