Today on April 5 at 9 PM as the nation complies with PM Narendra Modi’s request to switch off the lights and light candles for 9 minutes,the power sector of the nation will struggle to hold the breath the whole 9 minutes for the lights to turn On again.
The nation’s power supply is distributed through a central grid and when the whole nation switches off the consumption, a reverse current will be created which may disrupt the Grid in the absence of load. The household power supply demand for the whole nation is about 33 percent, the remaining power used by the industrial sector. But the lock-down has brought the Industrial consumption to a minimal making the household consumption the major load.
The Power sector engineers are devising ways to overcome the sudden crisis including tapering thermal output and increasing generation from hydro and gas stations to enable ramping up and down of power during the episode, calling for all personnel to be present on duty across the country and even requisitioning for “black start facilities” to be kept active as a contingency measure. This refers to the set of restoration procedures at regional load despatch centers alluding to the possibility of potential grid failure and having to restart the grid from scratch.
The real danger of central Grid failure is that the time it takes to make it functional could be enough to put thousands of lives at stake when the ventilators and other power-hungry machines at hospitals could run short of generator power for the repair time.
Post Your Comments