Breakdowns: States to pay levy for overdrawing power

KOLKATA: Utilities drawing excessive power from the grid will soon have to pay congestion charges, with the National Load Despatch Centre introducing a levy and setting lower limits to prevent a repeat of the recent breakdowns.

The NLDC, which manages the transmission lines that serve as the backbone of power supply, has also come out with a fresh set of transfer limits on the basis of the capabilities of the wires on each trunk transmission line in the inter-regional corridor and intra-regional systems. The charges will be levied in case of drawing power beyond the stipulated limits.

Following the grid collapses on July 30 and July 31, the NLDC has also started issuing strict orders to all utilities against drawing less than the stipulated limits as much as more than the quota.

At 0233 hours on July 30, nearly the entire Northern Grid was affected, while the next day, the Northern, Eastern and North-Eastern grids were affected to a large extent.

The NLDC and the Regional Load Despatch Centres, in consultation with the Central Electricity Authority and the Central Trasmission Utility, will once again review the transfer capabilities of inter-regional and critical power line links, keeping in view the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission's regulations and the experience during the recent grid collapses.


The Short Term Open Access approvals by the RLDCs and the NLDC will be considered based on the transfer limits that have been worked out. However, at any time due to an emergency in the system, the RLDCs will take all actions necessary to ensure system security including curtailment of transactions.

"In both the disturbances, in the antecedent grid conditions there was heavy power flow on the 400 KV Bina-Gwalior-Agra single circuit section crossing 1000 MW on the single circuit available. The second circuit was under outage since July 28 for upgradation. A similar incident at 1510 hours on July 29 had also led to a near-miss situation," said an NLDC report.

This section has conductors with a capability of handling 691 MW, but it was loaded much beyond this limit.

Similarly, the loading on many circuits in the Eastern region was 550 MW, more than the capacity of 515 MW.