India witnessed 2 major back to back blackouts in the electric grid on 30th July and 31st July. The 1st blackout affected 14 out of 28 states in India and left over 300 million people without electricity for over 7 hours. The 2nd blackout was even bigger, that affected 22 states in the Northern, Eastern and North Eastern grid, and left over 700 million people without electricity for 7-12 hours.
Central Electricity Regulatory Commission has ordered a detailed investigation into the events, and early analysis suggests that the events were caused by a combination of factors creating a perfect storm. These problems were compounded by some of the structural challenges faced by the Indian grid. Indian grid operators have a difficult task at hand of keeping the lights on in a situation where most of the country faces over 12 % of power deficit. Also the existing generation mix is too much dependant on the base load generation and suffers from lack of sufficient availability of flexible generation capable of quickly ramping for meeting sudden imbalances in supply and demand. Also with a push for renewable energy sources, India has an install base of over 18GW wind and over 1 GW of Solar PV generation as part of a 200 GW install base (i.e. almost 10%). As a result, the grid frequency in India does vary from 48.8 Hz to 50.5 Hz on some of the days.
Regulators and policy makers have been working on finding solutions for these challenges and there is a proposal for introducing ancillary services in India. Some of the utilities such as Tata Power has already introduced a Demand Response program in Mumbai through Customized Energy Solutions. There is also tremendous interest in exploring energy storage technologies for renewable integration, ancillary services as well as micro grid applications. There are also regulations on card, which will require wind farms over 10 MW to start scheduling wind power based on day ahead forecast, for providing some help to the grid operators.
This presentation will provide background on the ground realities of Indian grid and opportunities presented by the massive scale of challenges faced by India.
Insights from the recent India Blackout – Opportunities for energy storage, DR and microgrids
1. 03-10-2012
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Washington DC October 2012
Insights from the India Blackouts:
Opportunities for
energy storage, DR and microgrids
Dr. Rahul Walawalkar CEM CDSM
Vice President, Emerging Tech & Markets
Executive Director, India Energy Storage Alliance
Customized Energy Solutions
Washington DC October 2012
What happened?
Background
In the weeks leading up to the failure, extreme heat had
caused power use to reach record levels in Northern
region including New Delhi.
Impact
• The July 2012 India blackouts included a power
outage that occurred on 30 July 2012 in northern
India, affecting 14 states.
• This outage affected over 300 million people
• This was followed by another power outage on 31 July
affecting 22 states.
• This outage affected over 700 million people
Source: Wikipedia
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Washington DC October 2012
Northern Grid fails at 2:30 AM in 7 states
Grid Frequency data
30th July
Washington DC October 2012
Northern & Eastern Grid fails at 1:05 PM
North Eastern Grid fails later in the afternoon.
Grid Frequency data
31st July
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Washington DC October 2012
Findings of the
investigation committee
• Weak Inter-regional Corridors due to multiple
outages
• High Loading on 400 kV Bina-Gwalior-Agra link
due to overdrawal by some of the NR utilities,
utilizing Unscheduled Interchange (UI).
• Inadequate Response by SLDCs to RLDCs’
instructions to reduce overdrawl by the NR
utilities and underdrawal by the WR utilities.
• Loss of 400 kV Bina-Gwalior link caused the NR
system to separate from the WR.
Washington DC October 2012
Grid Frequency Analysis
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Washington DC October 2012
Existing vs projected
Capacity Additions
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Washington DC October 2012
How can this be
averted in future?
• Need for Ancillary services in India
– Current supply mix is focused on lowest average
cost and not the flexibility required to maintain grid
reliability
– Ancillary services can incentivize generation owners
to maintain appropriate reserves to respond to
system emergencies
– Right policies can provide incentives for investment
in fast response technologies such as energy
storage which can act as shock absorbers and
provide flexibility required to avoid such events.
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Washington DC October 2012
Fast Regulation: Speed Matters…
Source: Beacon & Altairnano
Washington DC October 2012
Solutions:
Role of Energy Storage
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Adapted from EPRI & AEP presentation
Perform
Achieve
Trade (PAT)
mechanism
for thermal
plants &
introduction
of ancillary
services
Over $26B planned Transmission
investments over next 5 years. Also
need for transmission optimization
with significant wind penetration.
Commercial &
Industrial customers,
SEZs / townships,
Micro grids
www.indiaesa.info
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Washington DC October 2012
Solutions:
Integrating demand response
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Washington DC October 2012
Integrating scheduling with
advanced wind forecasting
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Customized’s Market Operations Center currently actively
manages over 3000 MW of generation, energy storage and
demand response resources to maximize profits for our clients.
