As we all know that India is a developing country with lots of open and new opportunities which are provided in all the active and newly active sectors. These active sectors include the production units or the distribution units. The production units include the production of market resources. As a developing country, India also requires more power for continuous development.
The major part of continuous power development in India is basically achieved from the traditional power generating unit and grid. These power generating units use coal, hydroelectricity, and some of them also use nuclear reactions to generate electricity.
The downfall of these power units is that coal is a non-renewable energy source; a large amount of coal is used to generate a small amount of energy as compared with pollution. Continuous use of coals in large amounts will eventually lead to the depletion of coal. Whereas, for generation of hydro-electricity, the plants can only be placed at the places where high tides occur very frequently or can be placed along with the dams. This leads to the last option for electricity generation, that is, via nuclear reactions. The method is very dangerous as there is chance of getting exposed to the radio-activity and handling of nuclear waste is very difficult.
So, what is the solution for the safe, unconstraint and fair electricity generation to meet the necessary requirements? The only answer to this problem which comes is to use the renewable energy sources along with the smart grid technologies for the production and transmission of the generated electricity. In some parts of India, there are industries and companies which use the renewable energy sources to meet their requirements or to use electricity generated from the coals or nuclear reactors in fewer proportions. So, what happens is that the stress of producing large amount of electricity on the plants gets reduced and the companies get lesser amount to pay.
The use of the renewable energy sources like wind, solar, hydraulic, and thermal are highly situation, location and weather dependent. For example, the solar energy can only be harvested where the input of sunlight is high and for the long durations. For instance, in some parts of India like Rajasthan (Bhadla Solar Park) and Tamil Nadu (Kamuthi Solar Power Project) solar energy is harvested. The wind energy can only be used where the flow of air/wind is continuous and wind comes with high forces. Same goes for the hydraulics and thermal energy.
Once the generation of electricity is done by either of the sources, renewable or non-renewable, if that electricity is not delivered to the consumer then that energy is of no use. Here comes the role of smart grids. Grids are basically used for the transmission of electricity from one place to another. The traditional grids provide one-way communication, that is from the plants to the consumers and which leads to the loss of energy.
But a smart grid provides a two-way communication, from plants to consumer and from consumer to plants, making sure of reducing the losses. The Smart Grid is a system of networked utility and consumer devices, through technologies that ensure secure, reliable and efficient production, delivery and consumption of energy.
Figure 1: Pan India map of Smart grid pilot projects sanctioned by MoP, GoI
Implementation Ways
The Smart Grid will need to be implemented on three inter related layers. These layers are instrumented, interconnected and intelligent. The instrumented layer monitors everything on the grid, ensuring the safe transmission of electricity. Remote monitoring devices tell when and where faults occur, and where the inefficiencies are, enabling smarter sourcing and distribution of power.
The interconnected layer provides real time line of sight to key data and information. Interconnection also combines the virtual market-places between consumers and providers, allowing consumers to trade flexibility in usage for lower costs.
The intelligent layer provides the informed decision making throughout the value chain. The power grid which uses the sensors, smart meters, digital controls and analytic tools to automatically monitor and control two-way energy flow is also called as intelligent smart grid layer. The main condition for using the smart grid technologies is to have a smart consumer. The main directive is to provide a full time power supply.
Figure 2: Total installed capacity fuel wise [2]
Smart Grid Footnotes in India
The first step to make a smart grid is to provide the real time data from the consumer to the distributing authority; it can be done feasibly by installation of smart meters. Ministry of Power has approved 14 pilot projects in India that will be implemented by various state owned distribution utilities (figure 1), one of the major pilot project sponsored by the Ministry of Power is going to be setup in Assam Incorporated with Assam Power Distribution Company Limited (APDCL) covering Guwahati distribution region covering 15083 consumers. Getting 7593 single phase and 5601 three phase smart meters installed.
These smart meters will tell about the power consumption for every consumer with each minute record and send it to the Meter Data Management System (MDMS) and Meter Data Acquisition System (MDAS), which is connected to a smart meter with primary power distribution center and also this is linked with RLDC and the analysis of smart meter data will compile and shows that when the requirement for power is more and then Solar PV cells which are installed in the area for power generation are also calibrated for maximum input. This calibration can only be done with the highly analyzed data of instantaneous solar irradiance which is recorded for each day and predicted for the next day by analyzing the previous data and by using weather data measuring instruments and more Sophisticated Data Acquisition Systems (SCADA). Energy generation of a solar PV system can be analyzed with help of some software which is based on location dependence (PVsyst, Ret Screen, and System Advisor Model/SAM). We need some smarter grid projects in India as the contribution of renewable energy sources in power supply contribute only to 57.28 GW of the total capacity (326.8 GW).
As the required rate in power generation is considerably bigger than our production rate, the gap between the demand and generation of power is increasing day by day. From the time of independence, we have improved a lot in the field of power generation. So, for sustainable development we need to improve in other areas too.
The means of achieving this aim with a balanced environment is to increase the use of smart ways for transmission, generation and consumption of electricity. Incorporating less polluting means in generation of electricity leads to less efficient production. Every day there are innovations to reduce load and maximize output but the rate of demand is increasing very vigorously. The next option is transmission which can be improved by making our grids smart. The process starts with making consumer smart by installing smart meters and smart meters at grid stations.
Figure 3: Electricity transmission and distribution (T&D) losses in India and other regions [3]
Conclusion
For making electricity readily available in all parts of India, current means of production and transmission and distribution are not capable. We need smart grids to achieve this goal. Therefore, research and innovation in this area is a must for a cleaner and more advanced India. Our government is also supporting the smart grid models for new transmission grid layouts most of the pilot project are sanctioned by ministry of power. Let us think about the implementation of smart grid that leads us to a better India and better World.
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