PM's 9-minute lights-out call goes well without disrupting electricity grid

The Government on Sunday claimed that the nine-minute lights off event went off well without any disruption in the electricity grid.

The event went off smoothly. There was no complaints of grid failure. Officials of all the load dispatching units and generating units handled the situation very well, Union Power Minister R K Singh said after the event.

Singh and Union Power Secretary S N Sahai personally monitor the situation at National Power Monitoring Centre in the Ministry of Power office at Shrama Shakthi Bhavan.

The Minister also thanked National grid operator POSOCO &the national, regional&state load despatch centres and power generating stations for handling the situation well.

The power consumption went down from 117GW at 8.49 pm to 85.30GW till 9.09 pm a reduction of 32 GW. Then it started increasing, the Minister said.

Earlier it was anticipated that the fall due to switch of lights will be around 12 GW to 15 GW. However, the fall was much more than expected, said an official in the Power Ministry.

The ramp up was very smooth at around 110 GW after the dip in demand during light-out, the Minister said.

The Power Ministry had earlier dismissed the apprehension of failure of grid due to fluctuation in power flow following switch of residence hights entire country. The government said all system is robust and ready and handle any situation.

The government also requested public to switch off only residence lights and not home appliances like fridge and AC.