Electricity Transmission scenario in India

India’s electricity transmission industry is at cross roads. From a huge coal based electricity generation it is moving to generate electricity from renewable energy of solar and wind. These energy are not reputed to provide accurate forecast and hence it becomes all the more challenging for the power load centres. The transmission grid has to be smart and adaptable to meet the surging energy demand and supply from all kinds of power generation . There will be wide variation in terms of supply – seasonal, day and night as well as in demand with huge penetration of air conditioners, rural farmers agri power needs and increasing industrialization. The demand for electricity is on the rise following the GDP growth.

The decision of system operators in SLDCs, RLDCs and NLDC greatly depends on the visualization and situational awareness through data or information available in real time through the Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition System (SCADA), Energy Management System (EMS) as well as the Wide Area Measurement System (WAMS).

The Indian electricity subject is placed under the concurrent list of constitution. Hence, both state and central government are responsible for the development of the sector. There are numerous central power utilities like NTPC, NHPC, THDC,NEEPCO, SJVNL, NLC as well as Powergrid and other state power transmission utilities. As of June 2018, the country grid is divided into two seamless grid. Integrated NEWE is Northern (NR), Eastern (ER), Western (WR), Southern(SR) and North Eastern (NER). However, NR, ER, WR and NER have been synchronously interconnected and operating as single grid – Central Grid (capacity about 110,000MW). The other grid is Southern Grid which is interconnected to central grid. The interconnection is asynchronous and managed manually by load centres.

The following is the list of all Indian Electricity Transmission Companies operating in the sector