GURUGRAM: At present, if your sanctioned

, a term that denotes the maximum permissible capacity of the

power

line of your house, permits you to run two ACs but you end up running three, there are chances that the power will trip.

If many people are doing it in a particular area, it could lead to a power outage because of the extra load it puts on the feeders.

To prevent this, power

DHBVN plans to bifurcate its supply channel to households into two categories — one for lights, fans, etc and the other for heavy-duty electrical appliances like ACs, microwaves and others. A senior discom official said they will soon start working on the project, in which they will install a second phase in households for heavy duty appliances. This line, officials say, can be switched off remotely if power load is too high in an area and people are found to be consuming electricity higher than the permissible limit.

The project is part of smart meter mission, which is currently being implemented by Energy Efficiency Services Limited. It aims to cover all households in the city by 2021.

“In a city like Gurugram, which has extreme weather conditions, many people are heavily dependent on air conditioners during summers and heaters in winters. Using multiple ACs in a household puts excess load on local feeders, leading to voltage fluctuations and power cuts in a particular area,” said a senior DHBVN official.

Other than outages, which were severe in some parts of the city, especially Palam Vihar, this summer, voltage fluctuations are a perennial problem.

“Since some users often exceed their sanctioned load, we have decided to install a separate phase in every house which can be remotely controlled by us, so that whenever a feeder system is on the verge of tripping, we can disconnect the power supply to that particular phase instead of en entire area,” the official said, adding, “As per the plan, all electrical appliances such as ACs which consume maximum power in a household will be connected to this phase. In the event that this phase gets disconnected, users will still be able to use basic appliances like fans and lights, so that they are not inconvenienced.”

This exercise will not, however, cover commercial establishments, the official clarified. “We will provide energy saving tips to consumers through a mobile application that we will launched soon. Commercial users are, however, not included in this plan,” the official said.

This mobile app will also allow consumers to recharge their smart meters online. DHBVN has already started installing smart meters in the city.

“Consumers will be able to pay bills, lodge compla-ints and can study their electricity consumption pattern through the app. As the old meters will be replaced soon by smart meters, the data will be saved in a cloud which will provide daily consumption details to the consumer. This will also increase billing efficiency for the discom,” said Narender Saini, deputy general manager, EESL.