Gurugram power outage: What caused Friday's massive outage - from transformer oil leak to explosion

Several parts of Gurugram faced a massive power outage on Friday evening after a fire broke out following a malfunction of the main transformer at the 220 KV power station in Sector 72, ANI reported quoting officials. Several areas of the city, including the Rapid Metro service, were affected due to power outages.

Executive Engineer Anil Malik said, “This incident took place at around 7:50 pm. There was an oil leak in the current transformer which is 220 KVA… The explosion took place just as the circuit breaker was tripping and a fire broke out here… This led to a blackout situation,” ANI reported.

He further noted that power supply from 220 KV substation to Sector-52 and 56 including 5 substations was interrupted due to fire. Suggesting that the fire broke out due to thermal heating, he added: “Along with it, the Rapid Metro service was also suspended, though we resumed it around 8.25 pm… We have restored the entire system from our end so far… This incident was caused by thermal heating. The situation is completely under control.”

According to Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam (DHBVN) PRO, Sandeep Chugh, the power outage was due to a technical fault. This caused an oil leak and subsequent explosion in the current transmission circuit.

The electricity department issued a statement announcing that power supply has been restored in sectors 15, 38, 44, 46, 52 and 56. “Power supply restored from 220 KVA power plant in Sector 72, Gurugram,” ANI reported citing the statement.

The official statement further confirmed that “the explosion was caused by an oil leak in the current transmission circuit”. Officials said that “power supply to 7 power plants has been disrupted due to an explosion in the power transmission circuit”. Electricity department personnel including Executive Engineer (XEN) were deployed at the site to carry out emergency repairs.