POWER November 2012 - 12

tion phase (via webcast and regional conferences) from January
through April 2013. Recommendations for the energy transition
will be made in May 2013 following the discussion, and a new
energy policy bill could emerge as early as June 2013. Batho has
noted that the discussion will pay particular attention to " social
issues and economic transitions as well as industrial and professional
retraining authorities. "
After Blackouts, India Plans Reforms
The back-to-back collapse at the end of July of India's Northern,
Eastern, and Northeastern grids that slashed power to more than
60% of India's population of 1.24 billion has impelled the country
into a spending frenzy to upgrade its rickety power network,
which, a government inquiry revealed, was one cause of the
unprecedented blackouts. But the 10th-largest economy in the
world has much more work to do, including a much-needed overhaul
of its current patchwork of energy policies, experts say.
The blackouts on July 30 and July 31 afflicted a massive swath
of the subcontinent stretching 2,000 miles from Assam on the
east, near China, to the Himalayas in the north, and the northwestern
deserts of Rajasthan. The Western and Southern grids
were unaffected, leaving Gujarat and many southern states untouched
by the chaos. In the days after the blackouts, as the
country registered how immense the problem was, the government
jumped into action.
As speculation mounted about the cause of the blackouts,
the government's first order was to assemble a three-member
panel to determine the reason for the massive failures. In an 81page
report issued on Aug. 16, the panel pinned the causes on
weak interregional power transmission corridors that had been
compromised by multiple existing outages. Northern India was
2. Blackout. When the Northern, Eastern, and Northeastern grids
collapsed on July 30 and 31, more than 60% of India's population of
1.24 billion across 22 states experienced power outages lasting as long
as eight hours. States shaded in dark red are those that were affected
on July 30; lighter red indicates additional states affected on July 31.
Source: Wikipedia
States and Union Territories
Map of India
already seeing excessive power demand, and a chronic supply
shortfall was exacerbated by lower-than-normal rainfall from the
weak summer monsoon that strained the country's hydroelectric
power supply. But on July 30, several utilities overdrew from the
Northern Grid despite instructions from regional load dispatch
centers, causing its collapse and putting out the lights for the
more than 300 million people it serves across nine states.
On July 31, after the Northern region was separated from the
Western region following the trip of the 400-kV Bina-Gwalior line,
the Eastern and Northeastern grids collapsed, barring a few pockets,
due to " multiple tripping attributed to the internal power
swings, under frequency and overvoltage at different places, " the
report said. Restoration took five hours, eight hours, and two hours
in the Northern, Eastern, and Northeastern regions, respectively.
Several measures could have saved the system from collapse,
the report pointedly concluded, including " better coordinated
planning of outages of state and regional networks, specifically
under depleted condition of the inter-regional power transfer corridors, "
and " better regulation to limit overdrawal/underdrawal. "
The panel's message was clear. In September, Power Grid Corp.
of India, the nation's largest electricity transmission company,
pledged to spend 1 trillion rupees ($18 billion) to upgrade its
network over the next five years. The urgency is not understated,
company officials say, noting that India plans to increase its
generating capacity by 76 GW by 2017. " Making sure a collapse
doesn't happen again is our top priority, " Power Grid Chairman
R.N. Nayak said in an interview with Bloomberg on Sept. 14.
" We may end up crossing that 1 trillion-rupee spending mark to
strengthen and stabilize the gaps exposed by the blackouts. "
Yet that is only the tip of the iceberg, say experts from the
International Energy Agency in a September report outlining
challenges that the country must address to create a wellfunctioning,
financially viable power sector. Hurdling the first of
those challenges will require further reform of the electricity sector,
whereby the nation's energy companies can achieve " managerial
autonomy from central or state ministries . . . for timely
investment. " The key issue is " not private- versus publicly-owned
entities; rather, ownership should not interfere with market principles, "
the report says.
Another pressing reform involves pricing mechanisms. The current
rigid pricing setting determined by the government does not
reflect realistic costs, and this has been a primary cause of India's
recurring fiscal and supply-side problems, the report says. India's
power sector is overwhelmingly afflicted by a shortage of fuels,
insufficient infrastructure, and financial weakness of state-owned
power companies-and these are issues caused by " distorted pricing
mechanisms and a systematic weakness to enforce legitimate
revenue realization. "
One way that India could possibly become an open and functioning
energy market is by electing strong political leadership to
convey clear policy messages. " Frequent populist remarks, which,
for example, promise free electricity, are not conducive to creating
the right public perception of energy as a commodity, not an
entitlement. Furthermore, in the context of an increasing need
for investments and the integration of India's energy sector into
the global energy market, India needs to align its energy policies
and institutions with global practices, " it concluded.
Progress for Germany's
Power-to-Gas Drive
Germany's E.ON this August began construction of a new pilot plant
in Falkenhagen in northeast Germany that will convert excess wind
12
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POWER November 2012

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