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What caused Indian electrical grid collapse?
According to Institute Electrical and Electronics Engineers, lack of rain is a leading cause of Indian grid collapse.
This year's monsoon season, especially in Northern India, hasn''t provided the water that the region's farmers need for their crops. Less rain means that farmers need to pump more water from deep boreholes, using highly subsidized electricity. Haroon Yusuf, Delhi's Power Minister was quick to blame neighboring agricultural states for drawing more power than they were allotted.
in May this year, the Central Electricity Regulatory Authority (CERC) had issued notices to the state load dispatch centres (SLDCs) of Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Punjab and Haryana asking them to halt overdrawing power from the Northern Grid.
While the CERC had asked these SLDCs to be prepared to buy additional power to meet the anticipated demand during summer/monsoon, the states failed to take notice and did not maintain the grid discipline. Less monsoon rain also causes water levels to drop and hydropower production to slow. The northern grid is particularly reliant on hydropower, which accounts for 28 percent of the region's installed capacity [PDF]. Nationally, hydropower accounts for less than 20 percent.
So where can India get the power it needs to keep up with ever increasing demand? One potential solution is from hydropower plants that aren''t monsoon dependent. Yesterday, much of the power that brought New Delhi back online (albeit temporarily), came all the way from dams in Bhutan. Over the last few years, India has provided funding to build several large hydroelectric plants and transmission lines in Bhutan, such as the 1 gigawatt Tala project. The government of India has promised to purchase at least 10 gigawatts of power from Bhutan by 2020.
There are also plans in the works to link the Indian grid to other regional neighbors like Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. The events of the past two days may give such projects even more political momentum
POLITICAL ARTICLES
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