2012 India blackouts

India is the world's third largest producer and consumer of electricity after the United States and China; but has long suffered from unreliable electrical infrastructure. The private sector had spent $29 billion to build their own independent power stations in order to provide reliable power to their factories, and the five biggest consumers of electricity in India had private off-grid supplies. In total, Indian companies had 35 GW of private off-grid generation capacity at the time of the blackouts and planned to add another 33 GW to their off-grid capacity in the aftermath. Administratively, the Indian electrical power system is divided into Northern, Western (which, despite the name, is south of the Northern region), Southern, Eastern, and Northeastern regions. The Southern region only connects through high-voltage direct current (HVDC) interties, but the other four systems operate in synchrony. However, there was also unusually large electrical demand, and the Northern Region imported 4-6 GW of power from its neighbors. == Sequence of events ==

30 July In addition to the transmission lines under maintenance, multiple interties between the Western and Northern regions tripped out of service on the evening preceding the blackout, leaving only the 400 kV Bina-Gwalior line connecting the Western and Northern regions. The line was sized to transfer about 700 MW power with optimum efficiency, but could carry substantially more without damage, and at the time of the blackout carried about 1450 MW. The Northern and Western Regions' Load Despatch Centres (LDCs) requested that the Northern region shed load and the Western region reduce generation to unload the power line, but neither utility did so adequately. and a power company director noted that the "fairly large breakdown...exposed major technical faults in India's grid system. Something went terribly wrong which caused the backup safety systems to fail." Railways and some airports were shut down until 08:00, although the busiest airport in South Asia, Delhi Airport, continued functioning on backup power. Oil refineries in Panipat, Mathura and Bathinda continued operating because they have their own captive power stations within the refineries and do not depend on the grid. Over 60 crore (600 million) people (nearly half of India's population), in 22 out of 28 states in India, were without power. More than 300 intercity passenger trains and commuter lines were shut down as a result of the power outage. The worst affected zones in the wake of the power grid's collapse were Northern, North Central, East Central, and East Coast railway zones, with parts of Eastern, South Eastern and West Central railway zones. The Delhi Metro suspended service on all six lines, and had to evacuate passengers from trains that stopped mid-journey, helped by the Delhi Disaster Management Authority. The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), not normally mandated to investigate blackouts, began to do so because of the threat to basic infrastructure facilities like railways, metro rail system, lifts in multi-storey buildings, and movement of vehicular traffic. The following states were affected by the grid failure: • states on the northern grid: Delhi, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand • states on the eastern grid: Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha, West Bengal, Sikkim • states on the northeast grid: Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Tripura The following regions were not directly affected by the power outage: • Narora, Renukoot and Simbhaoli in Uttar Pradesh • parts of Delhi such as Badarpur • areas served by Sterlite and Ib Thermal Power Station (most of western Odisha) • most of the Kolkata municipal area (CESC system) As of 2 August, Uttar Pradesh was being supplied about 7 GW power, while the demand was between 9 and 9.7 GW. == Reactions ==

On the day of the collapse, Power Minister Sushilkumar Shinde ordered a three-member panel to determine the reason for the failure and report on it in fifteen days. In response to criticism, he observed that India was not alone in suffering major power outages, as blackouts had also occurred in the United States and Brazil within the previous few years. Washington Post described the failure as adding urgency to Indian Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh's plan for a US$400 billion overhaul of India's power grid. His plan calls for a further 76 gigawatts of generation by 2017, produced in part by nuclear power. Rajiv Kumar, secretary general of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) said, "One of the major reasons for the collapse of the power grid is the major gap between demand and supply. There is an urgent need to reform the power sector and bring about infrastructural improvements to meet the new challenges of the growing economy." On 1 August 2012, newly appointed Power Minister Veerappa Moily stated, "First thing is to stabilize the grid and it has to sustain. For that we will work out a proper strategy." He declined to blame specific states, saying, "I don't want to start with the blame game." Team Anna, the supporters of anti-corruption activist Anna Hazare, charged that this grid failure was a conspiracy to suppress the indefinite fast movement started on 25 July 2012 for the Jan Lokpal Bill and targeting Sharad Pawar. Some trade papers noted that West Bengal's CESC microgrid and the Southern region had survived the blackout, and proposed further decentralization of the Indian grid. United States Agency for International Development (USAID) proposed that India's post-blackout investment strategy should attempt to develop a "smart grid." == Investigation ==

The three-member investigation committee consisted of S. C. Shrivastava, A. Velayutham and A. S. Bakshi. It examined the causes of the blackout, and practicability of ensuring continued rail services during grid collapse, and issued its report on 16 August 2012. The committee found multiple systemic factors that predisposed the grid to collapse. The committee also noticed that the grid appeared to have insufficient black start capability, requiring two separate rounds to bring all power plants on line. Conversely, power plant protection systems appeared insufficiently aggressive, as separation from the grid under high load had physically damaged the machinery in multiple thermal power plants. However, delays in restarting the grid appeared to arise from constraints other than physical, as gas turbine power plants had also required an unduly long start-up time. The investigation also refuted rumors that the grid had been brought down by a cyberattack. == See also ==