GE’s Grid Solutions India team along with Tata Power beat an already difficult timeline to commission a 245 kV Versova GIS substation in Mumbai during the outbreak of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic. Four days ahead of schedule, on March 24th, the substation was energized and the project delivered to Tata Power.

Commissioning originally was planned for March 28th, but with India going on lockdown March 25th, the Grid team had just three days, rather than the seven days they had planned on, for project completion. The team—from automation engineering, GIS engineering and other testing teams—was moved to safe accommodations for those three days, and they obtained special passes allowing for safe transit to the site during India’s curfew.

The project was  a critical requirement for increasing the reliability of power supply in the western suburbs of Mumbai. The substation will help  to further improve reliability for maintaining uninterrupted flow of power supply for hospitals and institutions that are on the front lines in the fight to control the virus, as well as many industries that are supporting the building of infrastructure to help during this crisis.