An overstrained power generation and transmission structure spreading across 21 States of the North, East and North-East regions collapsed on Tuesday, plunging half of the country into darkness, trapping hundreds of miners in Jharkhand and West Bengal and paralysing the movement of inter-State trains. (The miners were later rescued.)
The second massive breakdown in as many days was caused by the continuing grid indiscipline on the part of the State Electricity Boards (SEBs) and power utilities that overdrew power from an already overstretched generation system. On Monday, the northern grid collapsed and it was restored after 15 hours. The Eastern and North-Eastern transmission lines too failed on Tuesday afternoon.
Although the Power Grid Corporation of India Limited (PGCIL) maintained that most areas would see power restored by 7.30 p.m., the situation is expected to become normal only after midnight. The Power Ministry and the PGCIL were unable to pinpoint the cause of the outage. States were overdrawing power was all that they had to say.
Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Punjab and Rajasthan refused to adhere to grid discipline and continued to overdraw power despite repeated warnings by the Northern Regional Load Despatch Centre (NRLDC) and other State centres, posing a serious danger to the safety of the grid. Even more shocking is the fact that most of these States have refused to install under frequency relays (UFRs) for automatic demand management schemes, which could have prevented such a massive failure. Similarly, the States were found to have overdrawn power when the grid frequency was below 49.5 Hz and even 48.8 Hz, in contravention of the orders of the regulatory authority and load despatch centres.
However, the Punjab government described the charge of overdrawing as absurd, factually baseless and grossly misleading.
Such was the scale of power failure that mining operations in Eastern India came to a grinding halt. Nearly 200 miners were trapped in the Eastern Coalfield at Burdwan in West Bengal and another 65 were trapped in the Bharat Coking Coal facility in Jharkhand.
The grid collapse took place around 1 p.m. affecting Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, West Bengal, Punjab, Jammu & Kashmir, Orissa, Bihar, Rajasthan and Assam and the Union Territory of Chandigarh.
The railway network was the worst hit with trains across major parts of the country stopping midway.
This is possibly the first time that all three grids have collapsed simultaneously. Till late in the evening, around 25000 MW of the total 50,000 MW had been restored. About 13,000 MW has been restored in the Northern region and about 4,000 MW in the Eastern region. Supply to the affected regions is being extended from western and southern Grids.
By evening, the hydro stations in the northern region started working and supply has been restored up to Punjab and Haryana.
Grid collapse cannot happen all of a sudden. Did anybody think about Cyber Attack on our Grid? Some foreign country who is against India have done this. The truth will never come out.
The only power is power and once this power fails all the rest of the powers that be in India would miserably fail. India has to wake up as there are limits to growth.
Over drawal is not a new thing, it is going for decades. Grid codes are there, Electricity regulators are there but over and above are the persons with no responsibility, i.e. the politicians.
Okay, but can over draw is the real problem? If yes than there should have been daily Black-outs!
Look on time gaps. It was just before 1 pm in Rajasthan, it was between 13.15 to 13.30 hrs in Delhi. the Eastern and North-east grid failas are around 14 hrs. As an Engineer, the big time differences cannot justify one event and the Black-out.
And Look on the mansoon session. It is lean load period, except in northern states because of failure of mansoon but even then the frequency of the system (Northen Grid) was around 50Hz.
All these shows some short of protection failure or lack of protection. Our planning is mostly considering low frequency conditions. We are connecting different grids throug DC. Big load throw of one grid affect other. PGCIL has failed to provide co-ordinated protection.
This is the price we pay for corruption and very poor governance.
Politicians should think and act on common good not making money and
getting reelected.
This is second time when the power grids fails. Indian population growth increasingly day by day and we are the second largest population of the world. The needs of electricity is increasingly day by day. Our transportation system, Industries all are dependent on the electricity. What happened if this failure continuous two or three days. What the government is doing ? Are they only busy with internal crisis ? why they dont think about the power projects in India????????
The reason for such a black out is simple -continued negligence by the
management .This is not a "speak any reason" issue -it is purely
technical. The grid demand cannot increase suddenly -we have a Load Dispatch Center to monitor .The LDC has to approve a sudden surge in
the load to be compensated ,else the load should be disconnected
temporarily from the grid to protect the grid-this is normal power
cut.
Only is if it is approved ,can a grid get overloaded .In such a case
,why was such an unwanted need entertained?The Grid has got some
strict frequency protection systems - So there is no question of a
"sudden" increase.When ministers say a sudden increase of 500 MW ,its
meaning is somebody "accidentally" plugged in an entire state like
eg.Assam into the grid.This could be an Operator negligence.This could
have an effect on the switching systems.
Other possibility is ,the grid was allowed to be "overloaded" .The
Ministry has to speak Technically and not like an illiterate commoner.
Worst Administration!Let us see where this ends!
Needless to repeat problems and accuse discoms or govt., I would like
to state that, Power generation problems will increase, since most of
time it is dependent on hydroelectric projects, even gas or coal run
plants can't save us as they are even shorter in supply, non renewable
source of energy needs to be explored. Although everything is in
paper; solar, wind, ocean energies are still largely unexplored. As a
layman i think Atleast cities if not metrocities can get their energy
requirement fullfilled through such renewable and clean sources of
energy. We as citizen need to adopt such practices.
I remember when the Southern Grid failed in the similar way on 11.09.01, which caused serious troubles to the citizens then. But, this crisis seems even bigger than the above one.
Until, India is capable of producing Electricity equal to the demand, this problem persists. There is huge potential of Wind, Solar, Tidal sources for generation of power. India has to concentrate on those means. Anyhow, as saving of energy is equal to generation of the energy, citizens also has to use the power in smart ways. Like putting off the loads like fans, lights, fridges, AC/ Coolers whenever they are not required. I find people keep them ON even if they donot require them. People should learn Social Responsibility. Jai Hind.
India shining! really? If we really want that, then we need a true
capitalist as our PM. I'm sure Rahul Baba doesnt even understand the
term...frankly, I just see one candidate who is capable of bringing
development, Mr.Modi, but again I guess nobody would want that on
several grounds! So sit back, enjoy if you can, or else call it quit!
It is true this can happen in any country. But in this case it is due ti indiscipline. Like in rest of the country, there is no respect for adhering to guidlines, ethics or time tested principles.By sticking to rules one can minimise these powerfailures to practically zero.
I think we have shown the world that even without electricity life is
possible for two days. Let us have a complete black out for 2 days and
resolve global warming.
This is a real pointer to our capability, management, and wrong
priority of governance. Our loud mouth claim, that we are the wisest
etc is meaningless. Ground reality is God only can save us. Power grid
corporation, central and state electricity / power portfolios,
Ministers..are only fooling the people. Power generation /
distribution is a vital area. Capable people should be, recruited,
promoted and kept in top positions - not loyalists and field
players.What is the point in having space research,latest missiles,
sun, moon and so on.Government knows illegal power theft benificiaries
-they know the outcome- not only money - such grid collapse. Why they
are not preventing that. What is governance? Why in US or Canada which
is bigger than our country such things are not happening. Even in
China, if this happens, many top officials would have committed
suicide. We are making a mockery of democracy, administration,
management, governance - only corruption,self praise, dream, vision
What we always do is that we complain about these things and forget about them in 10 days.. everything including the Mumbai bomb blasts, 2G scams etc etc etc... What are you people reading this do to FIX this... nothing!!
How many of you will vote in the next election?
Ans - almost everyone to one of these corrupt, incapable politicians of some party..
1). How the state govt can handle it suddenly without the knowledge of central govt. staff.
2). 24 hour uninterupted power supply to Multinational companies will make India into dark.
This is such a colossal failure of the government at various levels. I am shocked at the resigned apathy with which Indians have accepted this situation.
A very comforting response to the inept and corrupt -do nothing' bureaucrats and politicians.
If this is not enough for the Indian public to rise up and demand real, permanent solutions, they deserve crises like this one.
Failures, difficulties they are always there. Key is failure pin point
the cause, failure to anticipate such situations, and teams to act in
such situations.....these are the things which the country or the nation
has to work. But working on those issues will not get votes from the
public so politicians are not interested in it. The other immature
defense mechanism which have been opting for ages is say Mera Bharat
Mahaan, and go to sleep.
Is this issue raised to divert the peoples attention from Anna Hazare hunger strike. Never know...
I have traveled through the length and breadth of India. I found Gujarat is the most prosperous state of all. I lived in Gujarat for 7 years. If India ever developed, it would first look like Gujarat.
I didn't see any beggars, people are comparatively very honest, very hardworking, safest place for women, no rapes, 24x7 water and electricity, 100% employment, villages are rich, roads to villages, fine quality roads, high incomes, developed life style.
It is due to one man, 'Narendra Modi'. If he becomes PM, he will facelift India within 5 years.
We should not got panic, but to find the way out. Such a big black-out
due to grid failure as the states are overdrawing is shameful. Our many
power plant are shutting down due to the reason one or another. It is
failure on the part of government, but the people should also co-
operate. Use of AC should be banned in the harsh days and States
Electricity Boards and corporation should keep close vision on the
misuse of power.
Shame on our government, shame on the electricity departments. Is the government and its departments not keeping the tab of the number of consumers and the wattage required and keeping the production level to the demand levels! What else is their job?
Its a total collapse of administration. Stop electricity theft,
stop giving free electricity to big farmers who can pay for it.
Stop giving free units of electricity on caste basis.it should be
for those who are below poverty line not for. govt is using it as
tool to amass votes.Religious places should be charged for their
consumption, we have temples, gurudwaras, mosques at every street
corner using free electricity. the electricity meters should be
outside the house rather hanged on the pole.
This is mismanagement at its peak. Do we need any more proof that the
UPA government is paralyzed?
This is crazy. India's power infrastructure is awfully weak. India is not devoting enough to industrial development. It spends a lot of money on projects which have a minimal benefit. Strengthening the nation's power grid helps the industrial sector as well as the population.
The power failure in several States of the country affecting hundreds of millions of people is a national humiliation. The unprecedented power outage is a result of mismanagement and poor governance. The country dreams of being a major power but is that possible with the flood of negative images of the country that we are seeing?
Two massive power failures in a row and what action do we see from our exalted prime minister? - make the power minister the home minister! Brilliant!
.. Now we can Literally call our PM Manmohan's term as a PM as DARK DAYS
!PM will adjust anything for Coalition Poltics except PM'S GADI {
POST}!Shinde has squarely blamed PMO's office for this BLACK OUT and our
active PM has asked for explanation from him for this power outrage !
But remember ,he is mute in case of 2-G ,Common Wealth Scam ,Coalgate
Scam etc till now . But clever PM has elevated Shinde's position since
he is afraid of Maharashtrian Politicians !!
"we are looking into the matter", said the minister. What a nonchalant answer! Well,
do more than "look in" minister. It does not sound like he is either afraid, embarrassed, or in a hurry to do anything. We have to put fear into these folks, if
not, us hard working people will never receive what we truly deserve. Regardless of
party affiliation, we need to threaten to throw these bums out of the office.
Everybody is so expert in making comments but do I ask one question when it is time for election do we do 100% voting?.. When people will vote 100% to right candidate wrong govt. will definitely fall. People of India, We, The People have to develop self-sense towards our society, it is high time.
I do understand politicians getting some rap from public for management debacles. But what
about the technocrats? Is this not an engineering failure ? It seems public bodies like govt
and trade unions are soft targets when things go wrong.
Electricity board officials are the servants of those corrupt Indian politics. But for the corrupt government, India could have been one of
the most advanced country in the world. You need one member in the
family to get into politics. Money flows to Swiss banks soon after. Many
bright people leave and or left the country because of 10 percent greedy
animal politicians. We need peaceful nationwide civil disobedience to
bring these rascals to the knees.
Why exempt the elite when the common man suffers? The amount of
resources that might have been used to get electricity back in the so-
called "VIP" areas could well have been used to work on the issue to resolve it as a whole.
Indian Railways should go for diesel locomotives. Mass electrification of railways created a demand for 4000 MW . If railways uses diesel locomotives this power can go elsewhere and also save railways the scarce capital...
I don't know why The Hindu/ media is not highlighting this issue as this is no less than a national crisis. Make the people in the rest of the states aware in what kind of situation Indian government or our public sector companies in.
its engineering probelem what government can do on it. when load demand increases transmmission lines are subjected to its maximum capacity causing it to trip.this immediately have cascading effect on the grid causing its failure.gov can only put pressure on this engineers
This highlights the core issue apart from corruption - India is systematically
unprepared towards maintenance of its existing systems. Look at the deplorable
condition of infrastructure starting from roads to government offices. Only when there is a breakdown that people rush to fix things.
The other funny thing is that irrespective of the rampent criticism of the Congress gov., they still come to power. The masses in India are very vulnerable to cheap lures that works well in the vote bank politics that Congress has mastered !
They donot have the details yet, funny as it sounds, please ask those guys what they have
been doing here, why they are hiding the truth from public and adding salts to their wounds.
Is it grid failure or power shortage resulting from short supply by the private players initiated
as a mean to intimidate the government and railway to clear off the dues.
Where is Mr. Shinde now, Definately the mamata pet rail minister is sleeping over the dead
bodies of yesterdays victims.
Who will come forward to take the responsibilities of all these misdeeds.
I my self stranded here at Sealdah railway station and witnessing the chaos.
None of the official have any idea about anything even if they have they are not disclosing it
to any body.
Its us to blame we donot have time to support Anna movement but find it easier to kill the
tome seating at station.
God Bless India
Political parties cheer their budget speeches and presentations, but
forget to ask if things budgeted for are being executed on the ground.
If not, why? The level of complacence in the ruling govt is appalling,
as opportunity to build the much needed infrastructure fails. Every year
new Cess for this or that are imposed over and above taxes. Obviously,
it is not going in to solve the problem it was meant for!!!!!! The
failure is an indication of Indian fabric breaking at its seams. A
shame. At the same time, principal opposition fails to step out of the
'opposition' metaphor and instead of numb cries, seize the opportunity.
Why cant opposition come up with a game plan and start behaving as if
they already are the govt and how they will solve these issues. Even
something like the grand Golden Quadrilateral roads are potholed at many
places and in disrepair, while the toll charges keep rising. The common
man, I admire, for such patience and capacity to get on with life,
unhindered.
This was imminent and the situation will become even critical,failing
grids is not a big deal.lets try to look into the regions T & D
Policies of Discom's have not worked in their favor even after
implementing the electricity reforms act 2007 which stressed on
minimizing the commercial losses because of the theft, technical and
other issues.Coal India Limited is not able to supply the fuels needed
for electricity generation.hence the burden on the current existing
agencies in the sector is huge.Most of the parts of UP Bihar and MP
are sharing the electricity loads among their cities.But grids in
Delhi failed was seriously a big question on the functioning of the
NDPL & Allied parties since load increased threefold level resulting
in failure of the grid.future with frequent blackouts,No transmissions
,high electricity costs & other problems if FSA's are not signed
timely .Machinery is their but running the machinery is taking toll on
the power producers,solution is- Tarif increase?????
This is a deplorable situation indeed. The scourge of the century is upon us and there is imminent danger at hand. We may be drowned in the dismal darkness of doom, collapsing in the eternal abyss of darkness. We have been smitten and this will leave behind misery and woe, a ruinous sceptre of what was, and what will never be.
Purchase of inferior equipments in high voltage switchgear and protection equipments with hurried implementation of unproven and unreliable high end technology across the national grid has it's effect during peak load seasons. The only solution is to identify such bad technology equipments and restore proven conventional technology equipments. Even USA has not implemented high end technology as they wait and watch failures such as these and learn from them
people should understand though such big power grids are not expected to fail still the load they are running on and the tedious operations they are under puts them at high probability of failing once a while i am an engineer working in a similar area no matter how many SOPs you set up something like this does happen and the causes are unavoidable.
Let us be prepared in future.
There might be another possibility for the failures, a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) from a Solar Flare from the sun. NASA confirms that there was one generated on Saturday, category M6 a medium one and is moving slowly at a speed of 382 km/s, and it is headed towards Earth , going to hit by July 31st around 1500 UT... (www.spaceweather.com). Is anyone looking at this angle. We might not be looking at the exact root cause of the problem for the GRID failures. They may or may not be due to the solar flares but worth investigating.
I notice with extreme frustration that India has been brought to stand still with the grid failure. So, who is in charge? I am talking about the "tech no how" guy and not your average politician. We all know that a guy named Shinde belched out to an effect saying that this happens even in the USA. True, but the impact is not the same. I am deeply concerned, if India is training and recruiting the right people for these sensitive jobs. Knocking the grid out with few stroke of key button is a reality and is threat to our national security. Does any one at the top cares? What if we were at war? I do not think our inept politicians bankrupt with moral vision can visualize that! In a World that is advancing by leaps and bounds India is stagnating and not shining! At this rate we cannot be an able adversary to China. We are missing opportunities big time with misplaced priorities such as cricket, Bollywood etc. I worry for India and our good for nothing politicians do not get it!
This is the bestway when the people living in Metro/ Big cities can understand the plight of most village resident in India.
10% of Indian Population using the 50% of Indian Electric Power .Some living in air conditioner rooms while the most do not have power to brighten their hut with 100 watt bulb.
All Electricity Boards have been affected by the following since decades
nd nothing more can be expected. 1. Management by Politicians 2.
Corruption 3. Unproductive Unionism. Such and other failures could be
the order of the day.
Shinde earlier had commented that it took 4 days in America to solve the problem and we have solved it in few hours. Govt as always is expected to make excuses and hide the mistakes instead of taking quick actions to rectify the issue. Ministers and elite people would not have any problem as they would arrange for generators in no time. It is always the common man who has to suffer.
As senior official of the deptt said that this power failure is due to more consumption of electricity so i would like to appeal to all people that this is the high time to awake and know your responsibility and make proper use of electricity don't over use it .
I think from this situation ..people will aware about the importance of Electricity.so please save the Electricity and water.
Nuclear energy would be the best solution for the country. Lets not fall into the trap of politicisizing the country and say no against nulear sources. We have TINA here.
Is there anybody taking the responsibility for such a failure ?? There are men, women and children stuck on the roads, railway station...everywhere...have you heard any minister getting stuck anywhere...
we should not create situation of panic and definitely should not doubt credentials of the word" MERA BHARAT MAHAAN"...even in AMERICA there was a blackout!
we should learn from this type of situation and should increase our
dependency on solar energy.we can't depend on electricity made by fossil
fuels.now the time has come when we should generate electricity for
domestic purpose by our own domestic solar power plants and government
should also take action in this direction to increase the awareness
among people and facilities like subsidy for solar power pants used for
domestic purpose.
worst that we faced on 30/31july.never anticipated that nation is so weak
should we not start expensive use of non conventional sources of
energy...how about photovoltic or hydel power dependency.... your
thoughts... this is disastrous
What have we come to ??
this is the second time after monday's power failure...during such worst
weather conditions and in the month of ramadhan such situation of power
breakdown has given rise to innumerable problems..In order to combat
such error we all need to make judicious and optimum use of power
keeping in view the bad consequences...
This is a caution for us to be ready in future any kind of power shutdown suddenly.
I'm student of IT and i have been living here since four years.It is the
fist time i face such problem.The govt must resolve this issue as soon
as possible.Even the traffic signal and life line of Delhi i.e Delhi
metro come to halt affecting millions of people.
and the government talks about growth...
This is disastrous. Instead of progressing we're moving back to the primitive age. No
electricity so we'll be working with lamps and candles. "mera Bharat madman" all
that's happening make me doubt these words
The power outages show bad planning.The metro system should have their own emergency power plant at all important cities.That differentiates the big and the small.The smaller isolated cities in the interior should have diesel(or natural gas) generator power plants.Take Coimbatore as an example- there is no let up from power cuts and even if four stages of Kudankaulam comes up it will still
have powercuts because of the requirements of transmission towers.If gas is flowing,the city and the Railways will be served well to have a power station here.The present suituation of over a hundred thousand small emergency generators adding heat to the atmosphere will be corrected and an efficient power source will be achieved.Indians dont think of being efficient,they are brain damaged by the desire to run to other countries.
First time its tragedy...Second time is farce. (God know how many times it will repeat)Are we so incompetent that we can't build proper roads or feed our
people? The current system bureaucrats , politicians system not working. Need
radical change.
I am really not sure if we have a government that is functioning.
Powerless India.
The politicians busy filling their own coffers need to use their greedy minds and hands to strengthen and build a strong infrastructure-like China who recently unveiled the largest hydro electric project , till when will the common man suffer their incompetence towards public works ???
We have lot of Power related problems like power cut, power generation & transmission. These all due to lack of vision and poor administrator, hope by this time you might have understood that I am writting about our Power Minister Sushil Kumar shinde. He is just loyalist of Gandhi family, so he is getting such a important portfolio even though he is not capable of handling this assignment. In this UPA, you just need to be Sonia loyalist to get plum portfolio that is why Diggy is begging with Gandhi family, so that he will get some good ministry.
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