Grid collapse: Greedy states to face heat

States that overdraw power from the national transmission network would be penalised for the excess and their allotted quota would be reduced, power minister Sushil Kumar Shinde warned on Tuesday.

Shinde was cautioning defaulting states at a media briefing after the largest power outage in India. It was the second major breakdown within 36 hours of country’s power grid, or the transmission network, this time affecting the north, east and the northeastern parts of the country.

He said a probe had been ordered into the causes of the breakdown. The minister’s threat of penalising defaulting states was couched in the form of an appeal to them to not draw more than their allotted quota from the transmission system.

“States have been repeatedly informed not to take more power than their quota, and it is their ignoring of such requests that has brought on this crisis,” Shinde said.

However, the Uttar Pradesh government has flatly denied being responsible for the grid failure on Monday and again on Tuesday.
An official spokesman in Lucknow said before the failure, the state’s power system was stable without any emergency condition or any known abnormality.

The grid frequency, which should be in the range of 49.5 and 50.2, was 49.7. Overdrawal at this time was bare minimum around 40 MW.

While ex-bus generation from Uttar Pradesh Rajya Vidyut Utpadan Nigam Limited thermal power stations was around 2200 MW, schedule supply from central sector was only 3,339 MW.

There was no Total Transfer Capability or Available Transfer Capability violation that means there was no imbalance in grid parity in the state, the spokesman explained.

As to the cause of the grid failure, principal secretary, energy, Anil Kumar Gupta said, “Taking into consideration the parameters at the time of grid failure, there is no reason to believe that any power operations in Uttar Pradesh triggered it.

“Power swing is suspected on account of some transmission line tripping, causing grid failure. It requires further investigation to ascertain the real cause,” he said.

Gupta said he had issued strict directions to power engineers to make all efforts to maintain grid discipline. He appealed to people to save energy and prevent pilferage as their contribution to ensure quality power supply.

Echoing similar views Punjab government too rejected the blame, claiming that its overdrawal was minimum among other states like Uttar Pradesh and Haryana.

A government spokesman said when northern grid failed at 2.30 am on Monday, Punjab’s overdrawal was just 5.5% of allotted share of power in comparison to overdrawal by Haryana at 25.5% and UP at 20.8 %.  “These figures clearly established that Punjab has been the most disciplined and frugal of the northern states,” he said.