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India's power grid gets a summer scare
New Delhi: India faced a power grid scare last week as electricity withdrawn from the transmission network exceeded the available capacity, raising fears about the grid's stability.
The available transfer capability (ATC) in the western-to-northern corridor was about 22 gigawatts (GW) against the actual flow of 24.14 GW on 15 June, showed a notice sent to utilities by Grid India Corp. ATC is the volume of power that can be safely supplied between two points.
The national power grid controller wrote to the generators and electricity distribution companies (discoms) in the northern region to either lower the withdrawal or ramp up generation.
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After temperatures eased in May, there was a heat wave in June, which would have increased the demand, mostly in northern India, leading to congestion, said Vikram V, vice-president and co-group head, corporate ratings, ICRA Ltd.
A grid collapse is the worst-case scenario. Nearly 620 million people across 19 states and three Union territories went without electricity for hours together when the northern grid collapsed on 31 July 2012. In a wider blackout, the northern, eastern and north-eastern grids broke down on 1 August 2012.
India now has a unified national grid.
Vikram said instances of overdrawing were quite common till 2014-25, but have declined since then. Usually, in case of congestion, the grid operator may direct the utilities to reduce the offtake to avert any kind of impact on the grid. Issues arise when discoms draw larger than scheduled power from the inter-state grid to meet the high demand, he said.
Addressing entities in the northern region 'over-drawing or under-injecting" power to the grid, the controller's notice said: 'The following regional entities, which are downstream of the congested corridor, are advised to reduce their drawal/increase their generation to decongest the system."
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Grid India told the utilities in western and southern India to increase demand or decrease generation to decongest the corridor.
'This is a warning notice before levy of congestion charges and issued in accordance with the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (Measures to relieve congestion in real time operation) Regulations 2009," the notice said.
The peak power demand of the country hit 241 GW, the highest this year, on 11 June. That day, the peak demand in the national capital reached 8,231 MW, nearing the record of 8,656 MW recorded last year.
The peak demand on 15 June was 226 GW, also on the higher end.
Tardy grid expansion
Experts suggest that grid expansion is key for reducing incidences of congestion. More so when the installed renewable energy capacity has been rising.
Although the government has an ambitious road map to expand the grid, progress has been slow amid land acquisition and right-of-way issues. Data from the Central Electricity Authority (CEA) showed that in FY25, only 8,830 circuit kilometres (ckm) of transmission lines were added, 37.8% lower than 14,203 ckm in the previous fiscal and way short of the target of 15,253 ckm.
Mint earlier reported that clouds over vast swathes of north India in May had caused abrupt dips in solar power production, raising worries about the stability of the power grid that serves millions of Indians.
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In February, the national grid operator asked all electricity companies to be alert and supply power to preserve the grid's stability.
An analysis by the International Energy Agency (IEA) in March said that countries seeking to prevent or address grid congestion should adopt a proactive approach to grid expansion by means of anticipatory planning and regulatory reforms that incentivize investments in line with countries' energy policy priorities.
Congestion can also be mitigated by implementing grid-enhancing technologies, increasing transparency on available capacity, and creating regulatory frameworks and clear price signals to unlock flexibility from consumers, producers and energy-storage assets connected to the grid.
