The Indian power ministry is poised to make it mandatory for all electricity
distribution networks in the country to employ on energy efficient transformers,
energy savings from which are put at 2,854 MW sufficient to supply the individual
demands of states such as Kerala or Orissa.
This is part of the government’s green-technology initiative which also
includes putting in place a massive information technology network to optimize
power distribution and upgrade existing thermal power plants to reduce carbon
emissions.
“We plan to introduce energy-efficient transformers that will reduce
technical losses by around 0.6%. Today, per-transformer loss is around 1.5-2%.
The new specifications will have to be adopted by the transformer manufacturers,”
said a senior power ministry official involved in the process who did not
want to be identified.
There are around 40 transformer manufactures, which supply to the state electricity
boards that will be vested with the power to implement the proposal, which
is in the final stages of formulation. But adhering to the new specifications,
aimed at reducing heat dissipation that reduces the efficiency of the transformer,
is expected to increase costs.
Fighting power theft
Shortage due to limited generation capacity and growing theft has been identified
as key infrastructure bottlenecks in India. The country’s per capita
consumption of electricity is only 700 units, compared with the world average
of 2,600 units.
Although India ranks sixth in the world in terms of power generation, it still
faces a shortage because around 34% of the power generated is lost due to
theft and pilferage. India has an installed capacity of 1,47,000MW.
To counter this, state-owned power utilities are in the process of spending
Rs.10,000 crore on information technology-based electricity flow and accounting
and auditing software for 600 projects. This order, the largest placed by
power utilities for software, will help them manage their distribution networks
better.
In transmission, Power Grid corp. of India Ltd. (PGCIL) -
responsible for power transmission and grid stability – has been using
technology to its advantage. S.K.Chaturvedi, its chairman and managing director,
claimed: “We are using state-of-the-art technology and that is the reason
there were no grid problems during the last winter.
The firm has installed sensors on its network which provides it with readings
every 15 minutes on key transmission parameters. The company uses this to
monitor its systems and take corrective measures. It also plans to install
synchro phasers, that will monitor the distribution network to detect any
surge or stress in the system on a real-time basis.
Five regional load dispatch centers and one national load dispatch centre
manage power transfer between regions and form the backbone of India’s
transmission network. PGCIL manages 1,00,000MW at any given point through
its 117 substations and 7,00,000km circuit and plans to increase it inter-regional
power transfer capacity to 37,000MW by 2012 from the current 20,800MW.
Containing emissions
Power generation is the other area where utilities plan to use technology
to build less polluting plants. State-owned Bhel and NTPC Ltd.
Plan to jointly develop integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) plants
to convert coal into cleaner fuel that is then burnt to generate electricity.
NTPC, India’s largest generation utility, also plans
to work with the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and
the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, to use bacteria for clean-coal
technology and carbon capture and absorption. It also plans to reduce carbon
dioxide emissions from its coal based plants with India’s first photo
bioreactor at its Dadri unit in Uttar Pradesh, also in association with CSIR
and The Energy and Resources Institute. It also plans to develop 1 million
sq. ft of green building space by 2017.
It is also pursuing the biological route, using marine algae that are expected
to yield 30 times more than the conventional energy plantation of jatropha
and ratanjot to produce biofuels.
