CHENNAI: People of Tamil Nadu will soon be saved of the power cuts that are in vogue under the guise of maintenance.State power utility Tangedco has decided to complete all maintenance work in sub-stations and transmission lines by February-end. Starting from March 1, no maintenance will be undertaken that requires shutting down of power supply , said an official.The power transmission lines run to a length of 24,497km and the state has 842 sub-stations of various capacities."All maintenance work will be completed before summer. We have been experiencing increasing demand in the last few weeks owing to humid weather. But we could not stop our maintenance work as it would create problems during summer. Last year in April the demand touched 15,000MW," said a senior Tangedco official."On Saturday, maintenance work was taken up at SRMC feeder. The work was started early in the morning, and we restored power to Alwarthirunagar and nearby areas by 2.30pm," said the official. People across the state have been periodically experiencing 9am to 2pm outage. In Chennai, since the shutdowns are mostly on Saturdays, it affects the weekend routines of many households."When power is not available during morning hours on Saturdays, all our plans go haywire. Office-goers have to clear all their pending household chores, especially washing, during weekends. The news about no power cuts from March is a real relief," said M Subha of Adyar.But unforeseen exigencies cannot be ruled out, said the official. For instance, in April last year, two major transmission lines catering to the city sagged due to heavy load, he said. Normally, Tangedco-owned thermal units are shut down for maintenance during summer. "No other state has the luxury of taking off thermal units during summer when the demand is at its peak. However, since Tangedco starts getting wind power from May 15, we carry out our maintenance work in summer," the official reasoned.Many thermal units are more than 25 years old and they require maintenance. "In the last two years, we have met new peak in demand, and there had been no scheduled power cuts.This year too, we have enough power generation sources to meet any demand," said the official.

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