Building SMART power system for SMART Cities – India 2.0

Travel

“Hi Chandresh, I am your smart fridge.”

“I want to inform you that the inventory level of milk, cheese, wine and coke is running at 25% below the normal level. Canned pineapple & mushrooms are already beyond their expiry and are non-useable.”

“As per your cooking schedule this week, the grocery list with the necessary ingredients is ready on your E-cart for order “.

“The power consumption was 12% more than average which will add INR 55 to your monthly bill.  A power reset must be initiated to go back to the normal mode.”

“OK, order the items in the cart and complete the reset,” I said.

 

Smart Kitchen

This is the new world where artificial intelligence is making our life easy, automated & efficient. They review, forecast, coordinate, and handle regular & advanced tasks based on set algorithms. This is happening not just in our homes but across the globe in all domains making them FUTURE READY.


During the recent lockdown, everyone realized why the power sector, which was not even closed for 1 day, is an essential infrastructure service. Behind the scenes, dedicated power engineers were ensuring that a mammoth generation capacity of 370 GW & transmission capacity of 75,000 MW was kept ready to meet any demand on a 24×7 basis. During the last 2 months, the consumption pattern has shown very high variation requiring a precious supply & demand side management while keeping the network in an optimal phase.

The lesson learned in this phase is to plan and make the entire power system very dynamic and quick to respond. While coal/hydro/wind power plants can be phased ON/OFF, the transmission network remains alive at any point in time.

In our previous article, we discussed how the concept of SMART CITY is the core of the India 2.0 design. These cities will be digitally connected with each other but must be self-sufficient to operate on their own.

To feed the power need of these cities, there must be a National SMART power transmission & distribution network.  This SMART system will behave somewhat like my smart fridge.

Consider it like creating a GOOGLE MAP for the Transmission network. So, during any point in time, it shows the quickest mode for power supply and identifies the green /orange/red tracks of the network.  This will help planners decide if they want to expand the capacity of the network showing red or create another path to divide the heavy traffic. This can be implemented across the national transmission grid reducing T&D Loses and increase the capacity of the grid for inter-state power flow.

Sterlite Power is the only private sector organization in India to have brought the full package on the table. With an in-house capability to do network assessment and/or planning, they can simulate a network and identify congestion points.  There is an algorithm in which a state’s power network is stimulated for different scenarios and thereby you can identify congestion points. And since you know the congestion points in advance, you can plan better.

Recently they have brought “SMART VALVE” in an exclusive tie-up with Smart wire technologies, USA. It is the industry’s first easily re-deployable, intelligent “valve” to efficiently route power along lines with excess capacity for managing congestion points. Smart Valves allow utilities to fully utilize the grid they have already built.

This gives a future-ready solution to power planners for handling high load variation with an optimized network just like you and I manage to travel across India using network guidance on our GPS enables MAP.

Power Grid

I recently stumbled upon another Smart ideology shared by Pratik Agarwal, Managing Director – Sterlite Power. In a recent article titled – “Achieving power for all with intercontinental power grids” published in Fortune INDIA, Mr. Agarwal has shared his views on how one country’s sunshine can light up homes in another country. Inter-Continental Power Grids is a smartly connected network running across continents via under-sea cables. This two-way energy trade path will leverage the time gap between nations and feed surplus RE (renewable energy) from one country’s grid to another, as per the need. Now that’s what I call the real Smart way to tackle Global Warming and the growing energy needs.

As the saying goes –

“The best way to predict the future is to create it!”

And Sterlite Power is on a mission to create Intelligent Transmission network for an “Atma Nirbhar India 2.0”

 

Ref :

  1. http://cea.nic.in/index.html
  2. https://www.smartwires.com/
  3. https://www.sterlitepower.com/

53 thoughts on “Building SMART power system for SMART Cities – India 2.0”

  1. I so agree that it’s time to make a smart cities with good technologies!! And it’s time to create a wonderful future for all of us!!

  2. It feels so good to read about such advancements happening in India. With everything going hi-tech, we need a good and strong technology base.

  3. This is really interesting and amazes me. IIOT(Industrial Internet of Things) is definitely going to rule the world in a good way and it is fascinating to know.

  4. Power is a vital element on which the whole world runs. Management of power is a very complex task, and AI and other technologies are changing how this is done.

  5. It’s great to know about the technological advancements in our country. Our smart cities really need a strong technological base.

  6. Smart city , smart homes are all happening at rapid phases.Knowing bout what goes behind the ease which we take for granted is eye opening

  7. Yeah! Everything is changing so fast. We are growing as smart cities but I think the system should be more eco-friendly where we can make a balance between technology and nature.

  8. It’s great to know about the technological advancements in our country, because everything is changing like blink of eyes. We should have to cope with it up.

  9. This is teh need now throughout India – to build smart cities. WIth such quick changes taking places across the world we need more smart cities.

  10. Technology advancements would surely build up a great and better future of our country. Good to know that the organisation is packed with great plan.

  11. Thanks for the informative post India is a huge country and so its power requirement. It will be quite futuristic if smart cities are formed and furthermore if they are connected intercontinentally.

  12. Straight out of some sci-fi movie, these AI enabled Smart Cities don’t seem a faraway dream anymore. Your have lucidly pointed out the futuristic goals and they really seem promising!

  13. Smart solutions are the need of the hour. With more and more urbanisation smart efficient power solutions should be of utmost priority. Nice thoughtful post.

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  14. I would like to read up more about Inter-continental power grids after reading your post. Power indeed is one of the most crucial elements in a country’s growth and Sterlite is doing a stellar job.

  15. We usually miss on such advancements. It’s great to see how these will benefit and progress India much more.

  16. Interesting post, we all are heading towards smart cities.
    But living in a small hillside town I still feel relaxed in nature’s lap and doing my things on my own, walking to fetch necessary things, instead of buying online or being technology-driven.
    No harm being advanced in terms of technology, it’s a great development when we have AI enabled homes.
    Completely agree during lockdown the 24 hours working power industry helped people stay entertained and stay inside. Indeed a very informative post.

  17. That was a wonderful post, came to know the details and yes, I must say smart cities with these smart solutions is the need of the hour. Am sure this will go a long way.

  18. An informative post. Is India prepared for smart cities actually? I’m not sure. Honestly AI scares me. But your post made me think there’s so much that I am yet to learn.

  19. I am so happy to read this progressing India post today, gives me pride and I am sure we will achieve new smart city goal

  20. Wow… in these times of load shedding and inadequate power supply, wherein states are codependent on their neighbours to fulfil their power supply needs in peak times, an IoT solution for Smart Power systems looks very promising indeed!
    In fact, I believe Tesla has taken it one step forward wherein their systems step in the moment there is a slump in the power supply compared to demand, even before it’s actually reported on the power supplier’s systems! But, in India, I believe we have a much higher need than those developed nations in maintaining stable electricity supplies.

  21. It is good to know Sterlite power is on a mission to intelligent transmission. It is a great news for the whole nation. Very happy to know the positive use of technological advancements.

  22. Okay! This indepth science is not my cup of tea but it felt great to know we are progressing and working hard towards being self-sufficient India…great informative blog post…

  23. We have been talking smart cities for so long but its time to upgrade the power sector. So many power companies in the last decade and a half has gone from boom to bust.

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