The morning of April 3, Indian Prime Minister came out all of a sudden on media for a small, but eventful message to the nation. In his short message, he asked the citizens to switch off all the lights of their home on Sunday 5th April at 9 PM and light candles, diyas and mobile flash light.
This decision has shaken the entire power ministry and they are quickly devising a strategy to prevent this event from creating a possible grid collapse and resultant blackout in the country.
Many power plants produce electricity and send it to grids. These grids know how much electricity they can further transfer, so warn power plants in advance. There is no way to stop the plants for 9 minutes. There is a possibility that household electrical equipments worth crores will be fried because of this sudden drop in demand for approximately 10 minutes.
Central Electricity Regulatory Authority (CERC) specifies power frequency within a range which leads to Grid stability. Any deviation from this frequency is managed by increasing or decreasing power flow. Sudden drop or increase in frequency may cause a collapse.
Remember the power grid failure of 2012 when twenty states were hit by power cut, along with the capital, New Delhi, when three of the country’s five electricity grids failed. Hundreds of trains failed, leaving passengers stranded along the thousands of miles of track; traffic lights went out causing jams in the metropolitan cities, electric crematoriums stopped operating, some with bodies left half burnt before wood was brought in to stove the furnaces.
Sources said that state governments have been told to manage the power scheduling if a need arises, and keep some of their generating units in ready mode to switch off few units of grid, if frequency drops all of a sudden. Central utilities like NTPC may also be kept in a state of readiness to switch off some of their gas based stations as they are easy to switch on and off as per grid requirements.
In the meantime, UP government has issued circular for staggered power shed from 8:00 PM onwards, along with generating units being asked to generate electricity below the ‘technical minimum’, which otherwise, may lead to Grid collapse.
