Another power failure in India
timesofindia.indiatimes.com
timesofindia.indiatimes.com
a. No proper control systems/automation to detect and prevent overload/tripping in case of excessive power consumption by any particular state.
b. No back up/redundancy planning.
c. The grid architecture is badly designed, and leads to cascading failures of sub grids.
d. Low quality equipment which fails often.
India's energy infrastructure is ancient. Its patch work for overgrown villages(Read cities) totally incapable of meeting any sort of dependable demands.
Add to this massive bureaucracy, license raj and corruption in purchase of equipment in electricity boards. They buy low quality equipment which fails often(because they are bribed to do so), since equipment fails often they buy more.
The state of affairs is so bad, transformers fail and burst even if rains a little heavily. What follows next is hours together of effort installing and fixing new transformers. This is a common scenario in many areas in a city like Bangalore. This is apart for hours together scale of unscheduled load shedding which is frequent.
On top of this there are frequent protests and lobbying to stop the construction of power plants(Hydel/Nuclear or otherwise).
And these are all state controlled monopolies. Recently I heard, Electricity board in Bangalore is complaining against builders of gated communities(Flats and Villas) and forcing them to use Govt supplied equipment. Because the private builders are using better quality equipment which is exposing and is making the Govt board look bad in front of them.
Any attempt to correct this system is met by massive political hostility. And people proposing modern changes are perceived as anti-Indian culture capitalist stooges being used by companies in the west to sell their equipment.
I just switched over to a firm in the power generator sector in India, and the Govt Contracts for power are beasts. Those are things which we make sure we go over every page to fulfill.
They are also not that archaic - their backup/redundancy planning exists, at least on paper. We've supplied it for various institutions/bodies. Plus the Engineers in BHEL and the like are pretty smart chaps, sure they may be slow but they are far from being daft. (Again! My experience, and mileage will vary)
Not sure about how bad the architecture is, or how badly designed it is either. From what I recall quality levels are a patchwork. As I assume are equipment quality levels.
I'm not well versed in this, so I'm more interested in learning, whats going on.
The problem really is corruption, bureaucracy and license raj in awarding contracts and purchasing equipments. And this is not just the major/big equipment. Electric wires used to supply power are so feeble, they snap if it rains a little heavily.
>>Plus the Engineers in BHEL and the like are pretty smart chaps, sure they may be slow but they are far from being daft. (Again! My experience, and mileage will vary)
This is precisely the thinking we need to change. 'Lets give it to our people' ideology. This needs to change. We need to accept that if somebody is better than us, then they are better than us. Besides most modern electric contracts these days are rightfully going to companies like ABB and Siemens(Eg: Bangalore Metro). And they have done an awesome job, far better than BHEL can ever do.
What we need currently is privatization with regulations and accountability.
Just look at how private real estate developer are transforming Bangalore. Government agencies like BDA(Bangalore development authority) will never and can never do that.
We need to bring that in every walk of life so that merit based competition thrives and corruption/nepotism is weeded out.
From what I know about Siemens in that particular project is that they are buying most of the pieces and then assembling it. As opposed to fabricating parts and putting it together.
Anyway - I have studied for a while in the west, and I've seen both systems.
AFter reading your comment, I don't think you know where precisely they are better than us. Or where privatization works or precisely how good certain government organizations are.
The engineers who get taken, the civil guys in something like ONGC, they make pretty good and help build great infrastructure.
The engineers keeping our grids alive, I've never once heard anyone call them uninformed or unaware.
I don't think this grid failure had anything to do with "giving it to Indians" that mentality died in the workplace in 1990. Our engineers who work here actually make a good grid and good systems. Heck it hasn't collapsed in a long long while.
I think the collapse has more to do with people drawing more due to subsidies and political sops than anything else. And thats not something privatization is going to fix directly.
Matter of fact, so far Govt contracts have been the more exacting contracts from what I have come across, and the private ones except for the MNCs have been the more lax.
Further - from what I can see, the government contracts for a lot of these things are open and if you are in the country, you can bid for it. (Be you Siemens or Kirloskar) And those contracts? like the BGLR Metro order? Thats vetted and checked against by govt engineers.
The way the contracts are being set up in many places, end up favoring large firms. And AFAIK MNCs aren't paying bribes.
So we already have privatization with regulations and accountability to an extent.
You could say we need more and I won't disagree. We are moving towards that.
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Unsaid when discussing "privatization" is that it's tough to work in India. Competition is harsh and margins razor thin. I know that some companies would rather sell in other places than this market for better profits with less effort.
What I want to say is that you are painting a dark picture, but having more first hand knowledge at the moment, the picture is a lot more grey, and lighting up.
If you want to see how real estate developers fare on their own, you should always remember the message of gurgaon. A beautiful example of private enterprise - a great city with well developed plots. - And no common sewage system.
Order quality is high from the govt contracts, great from firms which use contractors, Most MNCs and hit/miss from other firms.
Large govt contracts are always going to favor large firms, so that was redundant. I wanted to explain that in the govt projects, the firms that do get it tend to be MNCs or larger firms and the MNCs aren't paying bribes.
There is corruption in the country, and I don't doubt things get twisted.
I'm not portraying India as having a working system. I am saying that it's not as bleak and that reforms are tightening the noose.
For example recently service taxes were changed drastically and that's going to bite into the underground economy and bring more firms into the tax net.
it's a bit complex but in essence the govt has decided that they are going to use the larger more established firms to drive smaller firms to register. And they are now going to use the big firms to essentially collect taxes.
In general if you wanted to buy stuff, it's usually not an issue.
Clearances wise, hmm. Well I guess that depends, for a transformer in a factory to obtain power from the grid, the transformer owner needs a load sanction. Load sanction is essentially how much you anticipate from the grid.
An engineer from the electrical inspectorate/electricity board will come and then verify.
The load sanction application is made to the local electricity board.
You likely won't have to pay(bribe) for the load sanction, and the process isn't that bureaucratic. Still that depends on the states.
Do note recently joined, getting up to speed on the system. If you give more clarity on what you are expecting, perhaps I could help more.
You need to submit the type test reports and submittals to the Energy Board and then they approve the equipment. This takes around a month or so. Once you've got the parts, you can install it and then a government certified technician/engineer is required to be present when you energize it.
Such failures somewhat complicate the commendable struggles against new nuclear plants and dams (e.g., http://www.frontlineonnet.com/fl2803/stories/201102112803090...)
Also same with street side functions, processions and religious events.
Everybody feels they have freedom to steal. No wonder corruption is so difficult to eliminate in this country.
For one there are several different types of corruption, I usually treat them as small c corruption and Big C "Corruption".
A break down for Small C corruption for Bangalore between June July can be got here - from ipaidabribe:
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=413057582064179&s...
(for some reason their site doesn't have the photo, so had to dig up their Facebook page)
Then there is large 'Corruption', the purvey of our politicians which has to be treated differently. Thats what we need the Lokpal bill for.
The new changes to service tax though, will slowly close many of the loop holes though.
Frontline magazine did a study which showed that a huge amount of power theft was occuring at industrial consumers. http://www.flonnet.com/fl1906/19060950.htm (it's a little dry in the typical Frontline style. I hope you will read it).
Also, you didn't mention businesses in places in Chandni Chowk, Lajpat Nagar etc? Given the other "cost-cutting"^Wtax-evading measures they take, I would feel very confident in assuming that they don't pay for most of their energy use.
Thanks to the 'green' brigade who live in a dreamland where India survives only on Solar and Wind, there are several "public-interest" court petitions stalling construction on one pretext or another. Local politicians were only too happy to buy media attention and make things worse. To get around this, we are forced to import higher and higher quantities of coal and oil. Yes..that is SO much 'greener'.
In fact several coal power plants are not even running due to coal shortage. This year has been especially terrible due to high temperatures and a bad monsoon leading to more power consumption.
It's a complete mess. And I don't have any optimism that things will improve. We will continue stumbling along to the next crisis..that is if this one gets solved.
See e.g., http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-03-19/india... the units seem to be unreliable, but we're talking around $3000 per family in compensation (938 hectares over 2335 families at Rs400k/hectare and Rs50 per USD). LOL. I'd stall a project if I was going to be uprooted, my livelihood (i.e., traditional fishing grounds destroyed) and I was given a insultingly low $3k as compensation.
Note that the first area to have power restored is NDMC, which houses top politicians and bureaucrats.