The massive breakdown of electricity supply to nearly 20 States, constituting almost half of the country’s population, has once again thrown the focus on the health of the state electricity boards (SEBs) and transmission utilities with experts maintaining that financial mess and indiscipline was one of the major reasons for such incidents.
The power outage has underscored the urgent need for putting in place a financial package to recast the Rs.1.90 lakh-crore debt of the SEBs and other power utilities as well as the need to effect tariff hikes, something that the Power Ministry has been asking the state utilities to undertake to get over the losses.
“The Northern Regional Load Despatch Centre (NRLDC) is like a policeman. It has to enforce discipline, and the States are expected to follow that. However, due to the continued financial indiscipline in SEBs and other power utilities, the States are forced to overdraw power from the grid, leading to collapse,’’ Associated Power Producers (APP) Director-General Ashok Khurana said.
He said due to the financial mismanagement of the SEBs, they were unable to honour the long-term bilateral power purchase agreement which led to non-planning of power requirements. “Unlike the U.S. where there are regional grids, the case is different in India as our coal comes from the Eastern region and major power stations are based out of there. The national grid is a major requirement for our country. But the need of the hour is reforms, including putting an end to the financial mismanagement of the SEBs,’’ he said.
IEEE-SA (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Standards Associa- tion), the leading global standards setting body, said it was time India implemented the Smart Grid concept that could reduce burden on consumers. It blamed the inefficiency of transmission and distribution in transferring the loss to the customer. The situation could only be saved with the implementation of smart grid which would also bring a solution to grid failures. “There is a need to reduce these losses through efficient management, and best operation and maintenance practice, which can be effectively done just by implementing smart grid,’’ it added.
Keywords: State electricity boards, power blackout, northern grid failure, eastern grid, power failure, Power Ministry, grid failure
In our gujarat this is not a problem. our visionary govt. has solved it
many years before.
These are good points they have missed a very important factor here. The Indian transmission network is controlled by advanced computer systems called SCADA/ EMS (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition/ Energy Management Systems) which are supplied by global suppliers like Alstom Grid (for NRLDC and National Load Dispatch Center, Delhi) and GE's XA/21 at four Regional Load Dispatch Centers-West, East, South and North-East. The SCADA/ EMS is the brain of the transmission network and has advanced software applications to detect overdrawal by states, to conduct system stability analysis, to detect grid under frequency and several other features. The so called investigation report that was promised in 15 days will be written by the same people who were responsible for this power outage - a classic situation of the thief writing a criminal report.
One solution may be to instal d.c. Transmission between the states. D.C. Transmission will prevent over drawal of power from Central Grid
Smart Grid enables you to shed automatically those segments which are overdrawing and causing a drop in frequency. These segments can be brought back into the grid once the state distributing system corrects the faults. The practical problem particularly in the North is that if you shed this segment, the farmers will come and destroy your entire establishment and in the process knockoff a few people and burn a few transformers.
there is only one reason for the blackout..
Govt. is not providing the required amount of power.PERIOD
What has taken place is quite normal and it could happen again.On
Sundays on board ship we had regular dead stop routines.The juniors
and seniors get experience and practice in coping with emergencies and
achieve standard methods of handling crisis situations.
There will be a fall out now if the authorities carry out the right
steps.Emergency power for all metros and other important places.The
Railway has already taken steps to source their power from new power
stations being built.Yes the safeguards will come in place if the
Electricity department sets it rolling.Nothing new at all.
"Smart Grid" is basically the application of digital technology to management of power supply. Why is India, which is proud of its digital technology, unable to develop smart grids suitable to our circumstances? Do any of our big three in IT or any of our IITs have groups for research and devolopment in this vital area?
SEBs are local satraps, power centres (misuse) of a different genre known for their
anti-social stance:and are blots on the nation.
smart grid is not a solution in India. Power losses are due to power theft. Not due to technical loss. Now, unless there is policing powers and the will to stop theft thru enforcement, nothing could be done.
Also, Why don't isolate the states which over draw and enforce them to abide by the rules. Make sure they won't won't get any supply from NTPC/National grids unless they stick to the rules.
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