Slashdot Mirror
Half of India Without Electricity As Power Grid Crisis Deepens
Hugh Pickens writes "BBC reports that a massive power breakdown has hit India for a second day running, leaving more than half the country without power as the northern and eastern grids have both collapsed. The breakdown has hit a large swathe of the country including Delhi, Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh and Rajasthan states in the north, and West Bengal, Bihar, Orissa and Jharkhand in the east. Power cuts are a common occurrence in Indian cities because of a fundamental shortage of power and an aging grid. The chaos caused by such cuts has led to protests and unrest on the streets but the collapse of an entire grid is rare — the last time the northern grid failed was in 2001. India's demand for electricity has soared in recent years as its economy has grown but its power infrastructure has been unable to meet the growing needs. In the weeks leading up to the failure, extreme heat had caused power use to reach record levels in New Delhi and on July 30 a line feeding into the Agra-Bareilly transmission section, the 400-kV Bina-Gwalior line, tripped, triggering the collapse. The second grid collapse occurred on 31 July as the Northern, Eastern and North-Eastern power grids of India tripped/failed causing power blackout in 19 states across India. The crisis was allegedly triggered after four states — Rajasthan, Haryana, Punjab and UP — drew much more than their assigned share of power."
"Dell Technical Support could not be reached for comments."
Is this another example of "all or nothing" attitude?
I use a bit of solar on my own house and I wish that I had a way to put up a wind turbine. They are great supplementary forms of power, but it seems like the attitude is that if they aren't perfect then they are worthless.
It's not all or nothing. If a lot of people had some form of distributed power it would mean less has to be produced at a central location and then transmitted for long distances, thus easing the burden on the ageing infrastructure.
Help I am stuck in a signature factory!
It goes to show how "developed" India is, when it actually has a sewage crisis, water crisis and now this.
Kolkata's sewage system is literally collapsing in on itself.
The modern India we see on TV is held up by the rickety old infrastructure dating back to colonial times.
India needs to stop funneling their money from into their pockets and back into the streets.
They can be light years ahead of neighboring countries if they concentrate their efforts into massive public works projects.
Previewing comments are for sissies!
Doctor Matt seems to have created his account very recently. He also seems to have found and be very excited by an awful lot of things that Microsoft Research have been saying. One or two of these things are even relevant to this thread.
Not that I wish to suggest anything but... perhaps Doctor Matt might wish to consider whether he has any particular relationships with Microsoft that might usefully be disclosed? :)
our corporate email owa web interface is down.
global fortune 5 company.
as for the outage, one big issue in this country is that power plants require outside power to run. They require the grid to be up and power in order to start unless the plant is a black-start unit, and they are a very very small percentage of the units. If the us infrastructure has this risk I can only image how bad it is in India.
Guess this means that HP and Compaq's phone in help desks are down.
And every other company that has off-shored offices over there. And I hope all the software developers over there are also in the dark and all the US based companies that sent their stuff over there are squirming and bleeding money over this.
And I hope this makes all their projects late so that when the customer says, "Hey IBM (or whoever), why is our project late?! You now owe us $Big Bucks in performance penalties!"
IBM: "It's not our fault! It's India's!"
"Our super top secret project that will make us the top dog in our industry is being developed in India?! With no way to check if our trade secrets are going out the door!?"
*Terrified Silence*
I can dream, can't I?
My 'perfect' carbon neutral electricity source is 40% nuclear, 20% solar, 20% wind, and 20% hydro/geo/other.
20% solar is a 'perfect' fit for the average 50% increase in power demand during the day. 1.5(day) + 1(night) = 2.5 * 20% = .5. 40% nuclear gives you a good amount of stability, while the 20% wind doesn't make you strain too much if power demand happens to increase when the wind isn't blowing ideally. The remaining 20% is for peaking capability(which hydro is good at), and niche electrical providers where they're just the best answer for that spot.
Best yet, since you have a variety of sources, you're nicely diversified and not likely to be as screwed by unusual situations.
I don't read AC A human right
Background:
I'm an Indian, presently in Gurgaon (within National Capital Region) and yes, there has been a blackout since past few hours.
As to homes and office, situation is not so bad because blackouts are such an everyday occurrence that diesel generators in apartment complexes and offices are *very* common. The immediate real effects are to infrastructure i.e. Railways and Delhi Metro (mass transport).
Now to address the system, a good reading : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_India
relevant parts from first paragraph:
The per capita average annual domestic electricity consumption in India in 2009 was 96 kWh in rural areas and 288 kWh in urban areas for those with access to electricity, in contrast to the worldwide per capita annual average of 2600 kWh and 6200 kWh in the European Union. India's total domestic, agricultural and industrial per capita energy consumption estimate vary depending on the source. Two sources place it between 400 to 700 kWh in 2008–2009. As of January 2012, one report found the per capita total consumption in India to be 778 kWh.
India currently suffers from a major shortage of electricity generation capacity, even though it is the world's fourth largest energy consumer after United States, China and Russia. The International Energy Agency estimates India needs an investment of at least $135 billion to provide universal access of electricity to its population.
India's electricity sector is amongst the world's most active players in renewable energy utilization, especially wind energy. As of December 2011, India had an installed capacity of about 22.4 GW of renewal technologies-based electricity, exceeding the total installed electricity capacity in Austria by all technologies.
We do have a major problem on our hands.
1. Demand *far* outstrips supply.
2. Distribution losses are high. Illegal tapping, faulty meters, old equipment and corruption being leading causes.
3. Free/cheap electricity provided to agriculture sector and collection of dues waived due to vote-bank politics.
But we are working on it:
1. Looking into renewable energy like wind and hydro in a major way. (see quote above and wiki)
2. Major investment into Nuclear energy.
Environmental groups are slowing down development of the above though.
Coal is only cheapest because it can externalize its waste disposal cost. If the Nuclear power plants were allowed to just dump their waste into the air that would bring down costs quite a bit.
The costs are comparable if clean air and medical costs for those impacted have a value.
We all know the old adage about a civilised society being just three missed meals away from barbarism. In the modern world, I wonder whether something similar could be said for the power supply. And might broadband ever fall into the same camp?
Been there, did that. So, for that matter, did Virginia, more recently.
Hurricane blew by. Power went out. Stayed out 4 days. These were the things we missed:
1. Refrigeration - we had a full load of groceries, so we crammed everything we could into an ice chest and grilled the rest.
2. HOT WATER!!!!
3. Cooking electricity
4. Air Conditioning
5. Lights
6. Power for the electronics
Afterwards, we looked into alternatives. R/Vs operate with gas-powered fridges, which are actually simpler and quieter than their electric brethren. But, being a specialty item, the prices are ridiculous.
2. Hot water was actually not that big a problem. Put a large jug in the garage and it'll be 110F in a day. Locally, solar experts actually recommend roof-mounted solar water heaters as the #1 way to save on energy costs, since hot water is one of the biggest consumers of energy.
3. charcoal BBQ grill. Although I bought a propane camp stove afterwards.
4. Fortunately, the first day or two after a storm is relatively cool. After that, the humidity and temperature soared to about the same levels as much of India is recording. Not pleasant, but, like much of India, we didn't have A/C when I grew up anyway. A solar-powered fan gave a little temporary relief.
5. I brought in the solar landscape lights. Afterwards I developed a keen interest in high-brightness LEDs, which were beginning to approach 1 candlepower. Newer units are even brighter, so that problem is no longer a problem.
6. OK, at this point the serious suffering began.