Odisha is on the path of building a disaster resilient power infrastructure in coastal districts

Bhubaneswar: 25/6/20: Odisha is on the path of building a disaster resilient power infrastructure in coastal districts, Chief Secretary Asit Tripathy on Thursday said.

Tripathy directed GIRDCO and GIRDCO to form a ‘Think Tank’ to add expertise on technical, financial, quality monitoring, advocacy, and regulative issues of the projects under the plan.

The DISCOMs were advised to participate in the ‘think tank’. Principal Secretary and Chief Managing Director GRIDCO Saurabh Garg outlined the issues for discussion.

Development Commissioner Suresh Chandra Mohapatra said the new resilient system will save the huge loss of public property due to frequent cyclones.

This will be taken up in four districts namely Kendrapara, Bhadrakh, Balasore, and Jagatsinghpur in the first phase and five other coastal districts namely Puri, Cuttack, Khordha, Ganjam, and Gajpati in the second phase.

Additional Chief Secretary and Special Relief Commissioner Pradeep Kumar Jena suggested that the overhead cabling and poles must be resilient against the wind speed of 300 km per hour.

Jena said the highest recorded wind speed during cyclones in South Asia region is around 315 km per hour and therefore it was decided that underground cabling would be done in town areas and cyclone resilient overhead cabling would be done in rural areas.
The DP mounted substations would be converted either to compact or to retrofitting substations as per the suitability. All 220, KV 132 KV, 33 KV, and 11 KV lines would be converted and made resilient.

Gas Insulated ‘H’ type structures would be raised for 33 and 11 KV lines. The plan outlay is nearly Rs 19000 cr for both these districts.