The old transformer unit at Hathipole has now been completely replaced by a state of the art Grid Sub Station (GSS) unit with a 33KV capacity and is expected to be functional before the end of this month. Chief Engineer Purushottam Paliwal has said that it was difficult to secure a new location for the GSS, Hathipol being a high traffic and public movement zone. Hence it was decided to use the existing space that had the old transformer and design a new state of the art GSS in its place. This took a lot of time and effort, but now with the unit in place, the heavy load in the highly commercial and residential area will be looked after.

The 33KV GSS at Hathipol will facilitate a reduction of 2.5-3 Megawatt power load across town. This will diminish instances of power fault and tripping in the area significantly, giving much needed relief to the residents and commercial units during the summer months.

Hathipol GSS will be controlled from the municipality GSS located in the general hospital premises next door.

With a 5000 KVA transformer installed in this new facility, 3 new feeders will be extracted, which will give benefit to consumers in the Hathipol, Ghantaghar, Khatikwada, Ashwini Bazaar and Maldas Street areas.

Till date, the above areas were controlled by two transformers in Hathipol, and during maintenance, all these areas used to be affected – but now, with additional feeders available, such situations will reduce. Paliwal also said that the GSS being in a prominent tourist area, the facility will very shortly be given a facelift heritage look.

What is Grid Sub Station (GSS)

A power grid is essentially the interconnection of power system elements such as generating stations, transmission lines, transmission switching stations, distribution substations, distribution lines and distributed load connections.  A substation is a specific element of a power system.  Here is a visual depiction: