Chennai-Based CSIR-SERC Develops Indigenous Emergency Retrieval System For Power Transmission Lines

Council of Scientific and Industrial Research's (CSIR) Chennai-based constituent laboratory Structural Engineering Research Centre (SERC) has developed an indigenous technology, Emergency Retrieval System (ERS), for quick retrieval of power transmission in the event of failure of transmission line towers, the Ministry of Science and Technology said in a statement on Saturday (14 November).

ERS is a lightweight modular system that is used as temporary support structure to restore power immediately after the collapse of transmission line towers during natural calamities such as cyclone, earthquake, or manmade disruptions. ERS can be assembled quickly at the disaster site for restoration of power in 2-3 days, whereas the permanent restoration may take several weeks.

CSIR-SERC has signed an agreement for licensing of the ERS technology with Ahmedabad-based Advait Infratech.

At present, the ERS systems are imported. There are very few manufacturers of these systems across the world and the cost is relatively high.

SERC's technological development will enable the manufacturing of the ERS systems in India for the first time, which will be an import substitute and will cost about 40 per cent of imported systems, the ministry said.

This development is very significant as failure of transmission lines severely impact lives of common people and causes huge monetary loss to the power companies. As the total losses and damages are directly proportional to the outage duration, time is a crucial factor in reinstating or remediating the damaged or fallen structures.

Made of structurally highly stable box sections, ERS is lightweight, modular and reusable. It provides complete solution from member connections up to the foundation for different type of soil conditions.

The system is verified through rigorous structural tests. Basic knowledge and tools are enough to assemble and install ERS at the disaster site. Suitable configurations for different voltage-class of transmission line systems are possible.

The system is compact and yet provides full functionality on erection. It is designed as a scalable system for 33 to 800 kV class of power lines and can help in building a disaster resilient society.