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Electric power blackout in India

ABDUL MATIN
IN northern India 670 million people, about half of the country's population, were without electric power on July 31. It is the largest power blackout in the history of electric power supply system in the world. Strangely, the second largest blackout, affecting 370 million people, also occurred in northern India only a day earlier. Two consecutive blackouts of such magnitude around the same area are unprecedented. The latest one covered the entire area of northern India from the north eastern state of Arunachal Prodesh bordering China to the western state of Rajasthan bordering Pakistan.
It is reported that hundreds of miners were trapped underground in the eastern states of Paschimbanga and Jharkhand as lifts failed to operate. Electric trains and metro services came to a standstill and thousands of passengers were stranded in and around Kolkata and Delhi. According to the Federal Power Minister Sushilkumar Shinde, the massive power outage was caused by states "drawing power beyond their permissible limits." The blackout of August 1 was thus man-made. He, however, failed to explain how two blackouts occurred on two consecutive days. For the blackout of July 30, he blamed an incident in Agra without giving details.
India, the world's fifth largest producer of electricity, generates 200,000 MW of electricity but it has a power shortage of about 10% (-17,000 MW) during the peak period, resulting in outages lasting up to eight hours in some regions. The situation has become worse this year because of a poor monsoon which forced farmers to pump more water from wells, resulting in increased power demand. Shortage of power, by the way, has become a common phenomenon in other countries in the region including Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
Large blackouts are not uncommon in electric power systems. Even highly developed power systems in Europe and North America also suffer from similar power breakdowns. Indonesia had a power blackout in Java-Bali in 2005, affecting 100 million people. Brazil had one in 1999 and another ten years later, Italy in 2003 and North America in 1965, Western America including Canada and Mexico in 1996, to mention a few.
An electric power system incorporates a complex and
The adverse public opinion in India, which worsened after the recent power blackout, may make the supply of power to Bangladesh more difficult if not uncertain.
delicate network of generating stations, transformers, transmission and distribution lines, and an elaborate protection system. One important requirement of the system is that the power generation must always balance the demand. Any imbalance in the system generation and demand may cause a surge, initiating a system breakdown. Protective relays automatically detect and isolate overloaded network components causing local disruptions. Automatic operation of protective devices sometimes causes additional disruptions. On occasions, such disruptions spread to neighbouring regions, covering large areas and causing massive power blackouts.
Overloading can occur for various reasons. Consumption of excessive loads, like in India recently, and short-circuits of transmission/distribution lines can cause overloading. Short-circuits may occur due to birds sitting on two power lines, animals physically connecting two or more lines, fires and natural calamities like, cyclones, tornados, heavy snowfall, earthquakes, tsunamis etc. Malfunction of generators, transformers or protective devices can also cause blackouts in the system. While power is normally restored within hours in most cases, it takes days to restore power if large-scale disruptions occur due to natural calamities.
Power system design postulates a major blackout at least once in a decade by probability. I witnessed only one local blackout in Liverpool during my stay in England from 1962 to 1965 and no power disruption in Stockholm during one year in 1966-67. Obviously, things have changed drastically over the years. It is now believed that climate changes and climate variations, due to global warming, cause frequent cyclones, tornadoes, blizzards, etc. Consequently we see more power blackouts than before.
The weak monsoon in India may also be due to climate changes. Power outages for days due to natural calamities have now become common in many parts of the world, including the United States of America. We may have to live with frequent power blackouts unless effective measures are taken by the international community to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.
Bangladesh is expecting to import 500 MW of electricity from India from next year. With a shortfall of 10% of the demand during peak hours, will India be able to supply this amount of electricity to Bangladesh while their own people suffer from routine load shedding? The adverse public opinion in India, which worsened after the recent power blackout, may make the supply of power to Bangladesh more difficult if not uncertain. Consequently, the present load- shedding in Bangladesh is likely to linger longer than we expected.
The writer is a former chief engineer of Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission.