CSIR-SERC, Chennai Developed Indigenous Emergency Retrieval System (ERS) for Power Lines

Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) constituent laboratory Structural Engineering Research Centre (SERC) based in Chennai has developed an indigenous technology, Emergency Retrieval System (ERS), for quick retrieval of power transmission in the event of failure of transmission line towers.

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Key-Points

 CSIR-SERC has signed an agreement for licensing of the ERS technology with M/s Advait Infratech, Ahmedabad.

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

This technological development will enable the manufacturing in India for the first time, which will be an import substitute and will cost about 40% of imported systems.

ERS has huge market requirement in India as well as in SAARC and African countries. Hence, this technological development is a big leap forward towards Atma Nirbhar Bharat and Make in India.

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.

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/damages are directly proportional to the outage duration, time is a crucial factor in reinstating or remediating the damaged/fallen structures.