‘Transmission’ and ‘Grid Management’ are
essential functions for smooth evacuation of
power from generating stations to the
consumers. Transmission function primarily consists of construction and maintenance
of the transmission infrastructure while
the job of the grid operator is to give operating instructions to the engineers in the field
and ensure moment-to-moment power balance in
the interconnected power system. Grid
management involves taking care of the over all reliability, security, economy and efficiency of the power system.
Fig-1: Five Regional grids in India
Grid Management in India
is carried out on a regional basis. The country is geographically divided in
five regions namely, Northern, Eastern, Western North Eastern and Southern. All
the states and union territories in India fall in either of these
regions. The first four out these five regional grids are operating in a
synchronous mode, which implies that the power across these regions can flow
seamlessly as per the relative load generation balance. The Southern Region
is interconnected with the rest of India grid through asynchronous links. This implies
that quantum and direction of power flow
between Southern Grid and rest of India
grid can be
manually controlled. Load Despatch Centres Each of the five regions has a Regional
Load Despatch Centre (RLDC), which is
the apex body, as per the Electricity
Act 2003 (EA 2003), to ensure integrated operation of the power system in the
concerned region. The RLDCs for North,
East, West, South and Northeast regions
are located at Delhi , Kolkatta, Mumbai, Bangalore and
Shillong respectively.
Fig-2: Load Despatch Centres
The RLDCs coordinate amongst
themselves both offline as well as
online for maintaining the security and
stability of the integrated panIndia grid. In line with the federal structure
of governance in the country, every
state has a State Load Despatch Centre
(SLDC), which is the apex body to ensure
integrated operation of the power system in the state
Fig-3: Regional Load Despatch
Centres The RLDCs in India
are presently owned,
managed and operated by the
Central Transmission Utility (CTU), POWERGRID
while the SLDCs in the state are
owned operated and managed by the respective State
Transmission Utility (STU) or the
State Electricity Board (SEB) as the case may be.
The EA 2003 has a provision for a
National Load Despatch Centre (NLDC) for optimum scheduling and despatch of
electricity across various regions and also coordinating cross border energy exchanges in real time.
Ministry of Power has notified the
functions of NLDC that is under
construction. Presently,
POWERGRID is operating a National
Power System Desk (NPSD) in New Delhi for
information exchange and
facilitating interregional transactions. The cross border
exchanges are coordinated by the
RLDC of the region wherein the international
interconnection is situated. Role of Load Despatch Centres As per the Electricity Act 2003, the
Regional Load Despatch Centre monitor
grid operations, exercise supervision
and control over the inter-state
transmission system, are responsible for
optimum scheduling and despatch of
electricity within the region, in accordance
with the contracts entered into with the licensees or the generating companies
operating in the region and keep
accounts of quantity of electricity
transmitted through the regional grid.
RLDC is responsible for carrying out
real time operations of grid control and despatch of electricity within the
region through secure and economic
operation of the regional grid in
accordance with the Grid Standards and
Grid Code. The functions of SLDC
elaborated in EA 2003 are similar to that
of the RLDC except the area of jurisdiction, which in case of SLDC is the state.
