Facing power cuts? Here is why it's happening in your area

Power Cuts: India today boasts of 100 per cent village electrification and is working towards 100% household electrification. It has claimed to become power surplus from a power deficit nation. While there may have had multiple factors behind these achievements, what very few people know that the Internet of Things has also helped the sector massively in the last few years. Sanjeev Seth, CEO, India Power Corporation, sheds light on some facts and figures of the power sector in an email interaction with the ZeeBiz.com:

How Internet of Things is helping the power sector?

Internet of Things (IoT) is a digital transformation or technology enabler which has led to a major disruption in Indian Power sector growth strategy for the past couple of years in terms of Load Flow Analysis/ Future Projection for Power generation, transmission network congestion management vis a vis power flow improvement assessment. The major contribution of IoT is witnessed by the power distribution segment through process/application/tools like Smart Grid, Smart Metering, SCADA etc.

Internet of Things (IoT) is beginning to become a powerful tool for:
Demand estimation- Accurately predict the demand for a period, maybe for a year ahead, a month ahead or a day ahead, this is particularly important when a bulk of the power purchase has shifted from PPA’s to trading on day ahead basis.

Demand response- which helps reducing energy use during peak demand is enabled through IoTs devices. It helps in smoothening the demand curve and also reduce the power purchase cost by reducing marginal power purchase at high rates.

How does one determine the success of this concept?

The success of IoT lies in two critical areas “Internet” a media for Communication and ‘sensors’ which tracks the activities on the network. In power distribution business, Smart Meters are being used for the timely billing of the end consumers, accurately measuring the power consumption which involves replacement of old electro-mechanical meters by digital meters with minimized tampering possibility in addition to prepaid / postpaid features. These meters are connected with the distribution network system of the electricity suppliers and monitored by means of technology like SCADA, a Cloud network/server (a secured place) and store the information.

This process gives both the consumer and supplier of electricity access to the information in real-time.  

Why Indians still face power cuts despite claims of being a power surplus?

Power cuts currently are due to spurt in spot prices of electricity which make the power supply non-affordable after a threshold rate. Additionally, discoms are not financially sound enough to procure power available in the market.  In fact, this is mostly due to the domestic segment of power value chain arising out of poor network, high losses or finance issues.

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What are the biggest changes in the sector have you witnessed after 2014?

Is UDAY a success? It has faced a lot of criticism as well. How do you see it?

UDAY or Ujjawal DISCOM Assurance Yojna is a financial restructuring as well as AT&C loss reduction scheme for the power distribution sector limited to the government-owned utility. It has been partially successful as AT&C Loss reduction target was 15% by 2018-19 and not achieved by most of the states AT&C Loss Reduction Target for FY 17 met by only 6 States of 31 signed up narrowing of (ARR- ACS ) revenue gap of only 10 of 31 states.