Power Ministry moots independent audits of transmission grids

[1]

The Power Ministry on Monday proposed to carry out independent audit of transmission grids within three months, a move that comes amid massive failures of grids last week that affected half of the country's population.

The decision was taken at a meeting here chaired by Power Secretary P. Uma Shankar and attended by members of various sectoral bodies and Power Grid besides officials from eight Northern states and Chandigarh, among others.

Sources said one of the resolutions taken at the meeting was to have independent third party audit of the protection systems for power grids, within three months. The process is to be monitored by regional power committees.

Following the collapse of three grids -- Northern, Eastern and North Eastern -- on July 31, new Power Minister Veerappa Moily had called for this meeting of sectoral experts and state government officials.

Later in the day, Moily is scheduled to meet chief ministers from eight Northern states including Delhi and Rajasthan and administrator of Chandigarh union territory.

The tripping of grids on July 31 happened less than 24 hours after Northern Grid failed and was restored.

During the morning meeting, the members also resolved to put in place adequate defence plans and protection systems to ensure integrated operations of the national and regional grids in adherence with the Indian Electricity Grid Code, sources said.

They noted it was also decided that all the utilities should adopt good operation and maintainance practices. The same would be subject to random checks by regional power committees.

Apart from Power Secretary, members of Central Electricity Authority (CEA), Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC), Power Grid chairman and managing director R.N. Nayak and POSOCO representatives also participated in the meeting.

India has five electricity grids -- Northern, Eastern, North Eastern, Southern and Western. All of them are inter- connected, except the Southern grid.

All the grids are being run by the state-owned Power Grid Corporation, which operates more than 95,000 circuit km of transmission lines.

One circuit km refers to one kilometre of electrical transmission line.