Effects of Power Outages.

A common hurdle faced by India towards its growth factor is power outage. India is among the fastest developing countries of the world and so, it’s dependent upon the electricity sector to harness its growth. India is the third largest electricity producer and fourth largest in terms of consumption in the world. (Source) But unfortunately, an estimated 27% of the energy generated either gets lost or stolen during transmission. The peak supply falls short among 9% of the population. And what’s worse, frequent power outages last for as long as a whopping 10 hours. One of the biggest power outages that occurred in India was in the year 2012 when three grids i.e. northern, eastern and north-eastern had collapsed. This incident turned 22 states of the nation in shambles. And, this blackout wasn’t the first in that scale. The northern grid of India had fallen back in the year 2001, and the north-eastern grid blackout occurred in 2003.  The ripple effects of these incidents compelled the Indian government to take instant corrective measures.

Meghalaya, Andaman & Nicobar, Bihar, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, are among states that are most affected due to power cuts. Power shortages are more prominent in Odisha, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh while Maharashtra, Gujarat and Karnataka face minimum problems vis-à-vis electricity supply.

Power shortage has been among the most prevalent issue in India’s growth track. In fact, since 1951, India has missed every annual target to electricity production capacity, as per a Bloomberg report.

How do power outages affect the people?

§        Agriculture is a dominant factor in people’s lives in the rural areas with over 70% of the rural population depending upon electricity for irrigation, storing of allied products and sowing. Impending power outages affects rural households staggeringly.

§       Transportation system in urban life depends to a great extent upon electricity. From train services to automatic signaling system, electricity plays a major role. Power cuts do mess up the system.

§       The healthcare industry is badly disrupted by power outages. Lifesaving equipment cannot run without power and major operations stand cancelled. In such cases, DG sets are life saviors.

§         Data centers and IT industry processes come to a halt.

§       The lives of hundreds of workers in the mining industry is jeopardized.

§        Not to mention, everyday lifestyle of India’s population which is ever increasing is adversely affected in terms of computer shutdown, electrical equipment such as heaters and induction cookers fail to work and thus, productivity slows down.

How do power outages affect businesses?

§        Due to high frequency of power cuts, out of a total of 650 industries of various sizes surveyed, 61% companies face more than 10% of loss in production.

§        Infrastructure such as telecommunication networks, healthcare amenities, financial services, water supplies, transportation industry and mining companies get badly hit. The infrastructure constraints brought in by power outages in India increases the relative cost of carrying out businesses which in turn gives birth to supply side bottlenecks.

§        Frequent power outages gone unattended limit the private sector’s global competitiveness. As a result of this, fiscal conditions decelerate substantially.

§       The manufacturing industry chiefly depends upon electricity for production. Due to power cuts, machines and other multiple operations come to a standstill. This stops production from individual scale to batch scale altogether. The manufacturing sector is the backbone of India’s commercial success, and this disadvantage keeps India from making it to the top League of Nations. 

We at Mahindra Powerol offer solutions to combat these issues of Power outages. 

Visit us at www.mahindrapowerol.com to know more.

Indian Power Scenario 2013

Electric energy occupies the top grade in energy hierarchy. It finds innumerable uses in home, industry, agriculture and even in transport. The fact that electricity can be transported practically instantaneously, almost pollution-free, at the consumer level and that its use can be controlled very easily, makes it very attractive as compared to other form of energy.

The per capita consumption of electricity in any country is; index of the standard of living of the people in that country. As per the latest figures, the annual per capita consumption of electrical energy in some of the countries is: USA—11,920 kWh, Canada— 16,020 kWh Japan—6,750 kWh, UK- 5,467 kWh, Russia-6,017 kWh and India – 498 kWh in 2012.

The electric energy demand in India during the past 20 years was higher than the gross generation as a result 
of which there were massive power-cuts. Monsoons are another reason for the increase in these power cuts. The load-shedding has been in force for the last several months as the water level in reservoirs depleted drastically due to deficient rainfall last year. There are several issues that characterize India's energy scenario today. These can be briefly listed as follows:

The present installed capacity in our country is about 225.133 GW as on May 2013 and the largest share in power generation is contributed by thermal power plants, which account for about 78.7 percent of the total power generated in country. Hydel power contributes about 18.5 percent while nuclear power accounts for only 2.7 percent. The rest being accounted for by diesel, wind, solar and gas plants.

In December 2011, over 300 million Indian citizens had no access to electricity. Over one third of India's rural population lacked electricity, as did 6% of the urban population. Of those who did have access to electricity in India, the supply was intermittent and unreliable. In 2010, blackouts and power shedding interrupted irrigation and manufacturing across the country.

The problem of rising power cuts can be resolved by adopting the following technologies which have been invented for the same purpose:

One type of technology includes inducting micro-turbines using natural gas that could enable individual households and shops to generate their own power cheaply, keeping grid as a backup.

Another such technology would be the construction of a Km long tower with saline or brackish water being poured from top so that as it hurtles down, the water reaches velocity of 70 km/h, good enough to drive turbines and generate electricity. Apart of this electricity would be used to pump water up and the remaining be utilized for consumption. Another device that could be used is a UPS (also called an inverter); a power storage device is a silent solution to power cut problems.