GE commissions first leg of grid-stabilisation system for PowerGrid

GE Grid Solutions today said it has commissioned the first leg of mega grid-stabilisation project of Power Grid Corporation for the northern grid.

After completion, the project would be the world's largest Wide Area Monitoring System (WAMS) solution that entails monitoring and controlling of electricity supply across the country which will positively impact India's total population, a company statement said.

The project is part of the Unified Real Time Dynamic State Measurement (URTDSM) initiative.

The project has been executed by GE T&D India Ltd, listed entity of GE Power's Grid Solution business in India.

This first stage will enable PGCIL to monitor power flow across 110 substations in the Northern Grid (NR) and respond to fluctuations within a fraction of a second. This will be critical in addressing power demand-supply imbalances and ensuring grid stability benefitting from the integration of renewable energy with the grid, it said.

When fully commissioned, this new WAMS solution will be the world's largest comprising 1,184 Phasor Measurement Units (PMUs) and 34 control centres across India, 350 substations in the national grid.

In July 2012, India suffered the world's biggest power blackout due to a grid failure which impacted more than 620 million people across 22 states.

A committee of international experts formed by the government to minimize the future possibility and impact of grid failure, recommended the implementation of a Wide Area Monitoring System (WAMS) solution across the country to measure the dynamic state of the grid and detect the onset of any unstable oscillation event.

In January 2014, GE T&D (formerly Alstom T&D) was awarded a USD 52.2 million contract to install WAMS across all five regional grids of north, south, east, west and northeast India.