Grid stability is key

Grid stability is key

Context:

• Instead of transmitting electricity to the farmers, the government, to start with, wants farmers to use solar energy to power their irrigation pumps.

What is in news?

• According to the January 2018 report of the Council on Energy, Environment and Water, there are about 142,000 solar pumps in India.
• The government is planning to install one million solar pumps by 2021.

Kisan Urja Suraksha evam Utthaan Mahabhiyan (KUSUM):

• The Union Budget 2018 has allocated close to Rs. 48,000 crore to set up the Kisan Urja Suraksha evam Utthaan Mahabhiyan (KUSUM).
• This programme will help set up more than 28 GW of combined solar capacity through these solar pumps.
• The government plans to purchase the surplus power through electricity distribution companies.
• This proposal will almost certainly increase agricultural incomes and reduce electricity losses when transmitting power to remote rural areas.
• The advantage of this scheme is that transmission losses and power theft would drop significantly.
• The feasibility of purchasing surplus solar power seems problematic.
• There is a need to address the issue of grid stability that this injection of surplus power is bound to create.

Loss of rural retailers of power:

• Most rural retailers of power also lose money as they sell power at a subsidised rate to the poor and the farm sector.
• The state-run distribution companies were thus running a loss of Rs. 4.3 trillion as of September 2015.
• Local generation of power in the manner proposed would take care of the above issues.

Balancing of power grids:

• All power grids require balancing.
• This balancing entails meeting the demand with adequate supply 24×7 to ensure there is no blackout.
• The reason for striking this balance is that electrical energy cannot readily be stored, meaning that power generation ought to work round the clock.
• These electrical gridlines were created to depend on reliable and controllable generators (coal, oil and even hydroelectric).
• However, with more and more power being generated through fluctuating power generators (solar and wind), a more precise balance will have to be created, which may cause more failures.

Way ahead:

• India is short of power; thus, while other nations see solar and wind power as an energy management problem, India also sees this as a capacity management problem.