R.N. Lahiri

Smart grid initiative for power distribution utility in India

After enactment of Electricity Act 2003 in India, a comprehensive change is happening in Indian power sector, and power distribution utilities are going through a reformation process to cope up with the regulatory change for reduction in Aggregated Technical and Commercial Loss, improvement in Power Quality, Reliability of Power Supply, Improvement in Customer Satisfaction and rationalization of electricity tariff. Apart from restructuring and unbundling of the power sector there is a need for introduction of ‘smart grid’ technology to increase the operational as well technological efficiency of the power distribution network to meet the growing energy demand of India in line with the GDP growth of the country. Smart Grid is sophisticated, digitally enhanced power systems where the use of modern communications and control technologies allows much greater robustness, efficiency and flexibility than todays power systems. A smart grid impacts all the components of a power system especially the distribution level. One subset of smart grids is smart metering / advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) etc. In a smart grid, all the various nodes need to interconnect to share data as and where needed. Smart Grid envisages providing choices to each and every customer for deciding the timing and amount of power consumption based upon the price of the power at a particular moment of time, apart from providing choices to the consumer and motivating them to participate in the operations of the grid, causing energy efficiency and accommodating all generation and storage options, Smart Grid also envisages various properties for the Grid like self-healing and adaptive The suite of Smart Grid products and technologies help maximizing system uptime, while also helping the utility more quickly to restore power to homes and businesses in the event of an outage. Government of India has recently formed “Smart Grid Forum” and “Smart Grid Task Force” for enablement of smart grid technology into Indian Power Distribution Utilities as a part of their Smart Grid initiative to meet their growing energy demand in similar with the developed country like USA, Europe etc.

Setting of market clearing price (MCP) in microgrid power scenario

Microgrid comprises an interconnection of various low voltage, small-scale distributed generators (DGs), energy storage devices and controllable loads interfaced through fast acting power electronic devices in an isolated remote area as islanding operation where conventional grid is not available. Combined heat and power (CHP) produced by DGs may be utilized in the local market making the microgrid most efficient and economic. Like deregulation regime in conventional power market, multi agent generator providers also may be considered to make the microgrid market equal competitive. The basic objective of a competitive electricity market is to serve the consumers at a reduced price. The objective of this paper is to analyze and propose the pricing mechanism for microgrid energy in the competitive electricity market where the microgrid central controller (mucc) is made to participate in the bidding process to settle market-clearing price (MCP). Two important market settlement techniques, day-ahead and real-time, have been considered with the marketing strategies of renewable DGs like photovoltaic (PV) and wind generation.

Analysis of market price for distributed generators (DGs) in Microgrid

Renewable and non-conventional distributed energy resources (DERs), such as, wind, solar PV, microturbines, fuel cells, diesel generators etc. are gradually becoming more popular as energy efficient and low-emission energy sources. Recent deregulation initiatives in power and energy industry are currently influencing company decisions regarding the construction of new generation plants and transmission lines, and complying to clean air legislation for a generation type. The dependence on imports of fossil fuels and the unavoidable depletion of these resources can only be countered through deployment of renewable and/or non-conventional DERs as Microgrid. Microgrid system will be economically viable if proper market participation is allowed. The paper discusses various marketing strategies for Microgrid Power Market such as, spot marketing, pricing etc. that can be applied to predict and ensure its economic viability. In the paper, the authors formulate a pricing structure in spot market scenario.

Importance of distribution automation system for Indian power utility

After restructuring & reformation of Power Utility Sector in India through enactment of Electricity Act 2003, the Power Distribution Utilities are facing tremendous challenges to comply regulatory norms as the distribution networks of Indian Power Utility have grown more than double in size and complexity in the last 10–15 years. It has resulted in increase in volume of workload and the inefficiency in whole distribution system. Continuance with conventional manual systems is going to prove a luxury in terms of cost apart from resulting in consumer dissatisfaction at the quality of service rendered & less control on Aggregated Technical & Commercial (AT&C) Loss. Enactment electricity Act 2003 has been pressurizing the power distribution utility to plan a clear road map towards achieving Distribution Automation without further delay. They need tod start implementation forthwith to meet the objective and begin the ‘Distribution Automation” starting with urban areas and rolling it out gradually to rural areas. The automation system can be designed using available technology in computer systems, control systems and metering systems and dovetailing the same into the existing power systems. All the tools required such as Computers, Remote Terminal Units (RTUs), breakers, Switched Capacitor Banks, OLTC (On Load Tap Changer) Transformers, Auto Reclosures, Sectionlisers, AMR (Automated Meter Reading) Systems and Communication Systems are available. An integrated Distribution Automation system enables Indian power utilities to have real time control over the costly energy sold. Improved efficiency results in lower costs & energy loss, better reliability in power supply, planned control actions, optimum power factor, and reduction in losses. It enables online or offline energy audit with or without AMR system which is now receiving the focused attention of all power utilities in India.

Imbalance cost hedging of wind generators in europe using weather securities

Climate change and security of supply have made it imperative for Europe to look at renewable sources of energy. Among the available sources, wind has emerged as the preferred option and this is evident from the fact that in 2008, wind formed the highest proportion of total capacity addition in Europe. Improvement in turbine efficiency, which in turn reduced the per unit generation cost of wind turbine together with policy initiatives by the various governments like emissions trading, renewable energy certificates and tax subsidies has made wind power competitive with traditional fossil fuel sources. However, among the many challenges faced by wind generators, one key challenge lies with hedging of the Imbalance penalty, which is due to the deviation in the amount of electricity bid and the actual production. This paper highlights the existing methodologies of imbalance hedging and then proposed a framework using weather securities to hedge the imbalance penalty. The paper starts with importance of imbalance cost for a wind generator and then moves to highlighting the key methods for hedging this such as combining the hydro generation with wind, dynamic sizing of energy storage system, use of imbalance storage system etc. Then it proposes a framework of using the Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) wind hedging contract for mitigating the imbalance penalty and highlights its advantages & disadvantages over other methodologies.

Importance of strategic maintenance management for Indian utility industry

The strategic maintenance management (SMM) forms an integral part of the management process in a power utility industry in a deregulated market. Hence this is one of the most important and critical management areas in deregulated power market. High value equipment-intensive utility industries that successfully adopt SMM practice can reduce maintenance costs and improve productivity through superior planning and may become more responsive to market demands through improved flexibility and agility. To achieve in the SMM field, the power utility industry needs visibility into three main areas of maintenance planning: short term, outage and long term planning. Planned maintenance (PM) strategies improve mean time between failures (MTBF), reliability, overall productivity, equipmentpsilas life and ultimately reduce the total cost of equipment ownership. This opportunity to make these improvements in a utility industry generates significant interest in planned maintenance strategies for any Indian utility industries that must manage mission critical equipments.

A Web-Based Fuel Management Software System for a Typical Indian Coal based Power Plant

The fuel management system forms an integral part of the management process in a power plant and hence is one of the most critical areas. It deals with the management of commercial, operational and administrative functions pertaining to estimating fuel requirements, selection of fuel suppliers, fuel quality check, transportation and fuel handling, payment for fuel received, consumption and calculation of fuel efficiency. The results are then used for cost benefit analysis to suggest further plant improvement. At various levels, management information reports need to be extracted to communicate the required information across various levels of management. The core processes of fuel management involve a huge amount of paper work and manual labour, which makes it tedious, time-consuming and prone to human errors. Moreover, the time taken at each stage as well as the transparency of the relevant information has a direct bearing on the economics and efficient operation of the power plant. Both system performance and information transparency can be enhanced by the introduction of Information Technology in managing this area. This paper reports on the development of Web-based Fuel Management System Software, based on 3-tiered J2EE architecture, which aims at systematic functioning of the Core Business Processes of Fuel Management of a typical coal-fired thermal power plant in the Indian power scenario.

Key initiatives in process improvement for newly formed power distribution company

There is an essential need for a newly formed Power Distribution Utility (DISCOM) to take a lot of initiatives to become reliable power supplier in a competitive market. The initiatives taken by a DISCOM in different areas like process improvement in technical areas like Operation & Maintenance, Commercial areas like Customer Care to enhance all the related performances. Key challenges involving the initiatives are to deliver quality as well as cost effectiveness to ensure excellence in customer care creates a work environment that encourages teamwork & innovation. With the implementation of the initiatives, effective improvements in the performances in all the areas were observed which enabled the company to IT enabled in the core business operations and adopting best practices for sustainable reforms.

Restructuring of an Indian State Electricity Board by process improvement in distribution

This paper deals with the reorganization of Assam State Electricity Board (ASEB) in India by disaggregation of the State Electricity Board into five distinct corporations, viz., one generation, one transmission and three distribution companies, to support Government of Assam in restructuring it and in developing strategies for new companies to operate in an efficient and commercial manner such that the power sector can become financially viable. As the reforms are undertaken, the companies may need process improvements, which requires benchmarking the best current processes in industry and implementation of those process improvements. The main aim is to identify the key performance indicators (KPIs) for each of these processes, to establish targets and to link them to the overall financial performance of new companies, so that the new companies will be able to deliver the strategy in the changed environment