CERC's order on grid code adherence remains on paper

Monday’s grid collapse took place barely one-and-a-half months after the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC), in a scathing order, had directed states, especially from the northern grid, to strictly follow the grid code and discipline to avoid overdrawal of power.

Further, CERC, currently in the process of issuing another order against overdrawal of power, is exploring an option of opening radial lines to curb such instances. CERC chairman Pramod Deo said: “CERC is currently seized of the issue of overdrawal of power by states.”

In its order of June 14, on a petition filed by the Northern Regional Load Despatch Centre (NRLDC) against utilities and energy departments of the northern region, CERC had directed all state electricity boards (SEBs), distribution licensees, state transmission utilities (STUs) and state load dispatch centres (SLDCs) to comply with the grid code to ensure safe, secure and reliable operations of the north, northeast and western grid. It had said instances of non-compliance would be reported by the regional power centre and regional load dispatch centre (RLDC) to it, in accordance with the code provisions.

GET A GRIP ON THE GRID

• Grid collapse refers to automatic tripping of power, often caused by excessive withdrawal. Sudden spurt in demand, coupled with short supply, pulls electricity frequency below the threshold. This leads to a cascading effect on the entire grid 
• Large scale grid failures being common in India, tripping occurs in the northern region leading to minor glitches almost every winter due to fog
• The last massive grid collapse occurred in January 2001, when a fault in the transmission system in Uttar Pradesh led to cascading failure through northern India. However, power was restored within hours
• Another failure occurred in March 2010, when foggy conditions led to tripping near Panipat. Affected states included Punjab, Haryana and Jammu & Kashmir. Uttar Pradesh largely remained unaffected
• Complete northern grid collapse on July 30, 2012, as overdrawl by states caused tripping near Agra in UP. The outages spread across seven states, including national capital Delhi, owing to a cascading effect. Power restored within hours 
• India is not the only country with a history of power outages. An instance of grid failure tripping of a substation leading to large-scale blackouts was in Florida US, affecting four million people in February 2008. Also, a snowstorm along the east coast of US caused two million power outages in October 2011

CERC also directed SLDC, through the respective SEBs and distribution licensees, to formulate and implement state-of-the-art schemes for automatic demand management, such as rational load shedding and demand responses to reduce overdrawal. However, except some utilities of Delhi, none other in the country had done so.

NRLDC, in its petition, had said instances of serious or repeated violation and incidence of persistent non-compliance of the directions of RLDCs were reported to the CERC. It also brought to CERC’s notice that the daily overdrawal of power by constituents of the northern region, especially Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Rajasthan during September 23, 2011, and October 6, 2011, was significantly high.

It said it had asked constituents to curb the overdrawal, so that the grid was operated in accordance with the code. However, its directions were not complied with. Further, some of the regional entities continued to endanger grid security and repeatedly violated provisions of the grid code and the Electricity Act, 2003. NRLDC had pleaded that SLDCs and STUs be directed to restrict the drawal of their control area from the grid within the net drawal schedule whenever the system frequency fell to 49.7 Hz. They should also be told to ensure requisite load shedding, so that there was no overdrawal when the frequency dipped below 49.5 Hz.