2012 India BlackoutsCase Study - Interim

Peter Chung (ID: pwc140030)Class: EMS in Software EngineeringCourse: Advanced Requirements Engineering (CS/SE 6361), Fall 2014

 On July 30th

 And July 31st, 2012

 In India…

Across 22 states in

Northern

Eastern &Northeast

Power Black Out

~300 million people on 30th,

~640 million people on 31st

The largest power outage in history

were affected.

Slow, Stop, Frustration…

Executive Summary: Power GridIndia has five regional grids connecting the regions named

after:

Northern Region (NR)

Eastern Region (ER) Western Region (WR)

North East Region (NER)

Southern Region (SR)

Executive Summary: Power Grid• Out of the grids, the NR, ER, WR and NER are

synchronized and is known as the NEW Grid.

Northern Region (NR)

Eastern Region (ER) Western Region (WR)

North East Region (NER)

Southern Region (SR)

• SR is not synchronized with the rest of the regions.

Executive Summary: Power Grid• On July 30th, the NR Grid failed.

Northern Region (NR)

Eastern Region (ER) Western Region (WR)

North East Region (NER)

Southern Region (SR)

• On July 31st, the NR Grid failed again and cascaded to NER an ER.

Background1. The northern grid had previously collapsed in

2001.2. The electrical infrastructure was generally

considered unreliable. 3. An estimated 27% of energy generated was lost in

transmission.4. Efforts were underway to reduce transmission and

distribution losses and increase production further.

5. In the summer of 2012, extreme heat caused power use to reach record levels in New Delhi.

6. Due to the late arrival of monsoons, agricultural areas drew increased power from the grid for running irrigation pumps to paddy field.

7. The late monsoon also meant that hydropower plants were generating less than their usual production.

Problem 1 (P1) P1: Demand & Supply Mismatch

• Two states in northern region allegedly overdrew power beyond their allocation.

•The weak and delayed monsoons especially in some northern states that have economies dependent on agriculture caused high demand for power for irrigation.

Problem 2 (P2) P2: Demand & Supply Mismanagement

• All states in India are given a central government allocation from Central Generating Stations

• This task is handled by the regional load dispatch centers that are responsible to manage demand and supply of power to their respective regions.

•The north regional load despatch centers failed to manage demand and supply of power to north region by negligent or not checking the warning signals.

Problem 3 (P3) P3: No safety mechanism

•The Southern grid has deployed an ‘Under Frequency (UF) Load’ mechanism which will not allow states to draw more power from the grid when the frequency dips below 49.5 cycles.

•There is also a System Protection Scheme (SPS) in the Southern grid where the load feeder in the grid systems will trip when there is a problem but the main grid will be safe and stable. •The Northern Grid also has such systems in place (UF and SPS) but are generally not enabled due to non-technical and political issues.

Problem 4 (P4) P4: No automated isolation mechanism

When the NR Grid failed, the WR grid isolated automatically and avoided the failure, however, the ER and the NER grids did not isolated from the link inside the new grid link.

Reference 

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_India_blackouts• http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/01/world/asia/power-outages

-hit-600-million-in-india.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0• http://blog.powercuts.in/?p=28• http://www.mercomcapital.com/insight-into-the-grid-failure-in-i

ndia• http://www.slideshare.net/giridaran123/blackout-v2• http://www.cercind.gov.in/2012/orders/Final_Report_Grid_Dist

urbance.pdf

Thank You