North Chennai Thermal Power Station Shutdown Cuts Power in Manali and Athipattu

A technical fault at the North Chennai Thermal Power Station (Stage-I) forced a temporary shutdown of all three of its 210 MW generating units on Wednesday morning, disrupting the electricity supply to thousands of consumers in Manali, Athipattu, Gummidipoondi, and neighbouring localities. The outage began at approximately 6:00 AM, cutting off power to a large number of households and businesses in these northern parts of the city.

Immediately after the fault was detected, officials and engineers launched emergency restoration work to address the issue. The shutdown of the three units temporarily halted a total of 630 MW of power generation at the Stage-I facility. To minimize the impact on the public, power supply to the affected areas was restored in a phased manner, with normal supply completely restored by around 10:00 AM.

A senior official from the Tamil Nadu Power Generation Corporation Limited (TNPGCL) explained that the technical fault was first noticed in Unit-I. To prevent the problem from spreading and causing further damage to the infrastructure, officials took the precautionary measure of taking the remaining two 210 MW units out of service. This action led to the temporary suspension of operations across the entire Stage-I station.

Despite the scale of the shutdown, engineers managed to resume power generation within three hours of the initial failure. The rapid response from the technical teams ensured that the disruption did not stretch longer into the day.

At present, the exact cause of the technical fault is yet to be identified. Engineers are currently carrying out a detailed technical assessment at the plant to determine the root cause of the shutdown. TNPGCL officials confirmed that all three units have since resumed generation and the power station is currently functioning normally.