Government Aims to Provide Power at Reasonable Rate to All Citizens

Minister for Power, Dr. Veerappa Moily today said, the power sector is endeavoring to meet the challenges of providing adequate power needed to fuel the growing economy of the country. In the present scenario, it is essential that development of the power sector should be commensurate with the overall economic growth of the nation. The Government is striving to provide affordable and reliable power to all sectors of the economy, the minister said. The mission of the government is to provide power at reasonable rate to all its citizens.  To meet the increasing requirement of electricity, massive capacity additions are being planned during the next decade. The Minister said this while inaugurating R&D CONCLAVE 2012 on power sector, organized by Central Electricity Authority and Central Power Research Institute

            The Power sector is highly technology intensive and hence Research and Development (R&D) plays a major role in the developmental plans, especially while considering introduction of new and advanced Technologies for strengthening power sector. To absorb high end technologies, national level R&D base is important to understand the various technologies and their advancements to work in Indian environment. Dr.Moily  emphasized on  the need for research to be practical, result oriented and beneficial to the people.

            Speaking on the occasion, Dr.K.C.Venugopal, Minister of state for Power said government will strive to ensure that the benefits of the increasing availability of power reach poorest of the poor in rural areas of the country.

            Shri P. Uma Shankar, Secretary in power ministry in his address said that government is emphasizing on an efficient and well performing Distribution sector and focusing on the improvement of financial health of utilities towards providing reliable and quality power supply and universal access to power.

The Ministry of Power has been encouraging R&D through Research Scheme on Power (RSOP) and National Perspective Plan (NPP) R&D.  Realizing the fact that Power Sector is highly technology intensive and Research and Development (R&D)  plays a major role in the developmental plans, especially while considering introduction of new and advanced Technologies for strengthening of our power sector, lot of emphasis has been laid on expansion and sustenance of R&D in Indian Power sector.  Adoption and absorption of new technologies in a phased manner is essential towards a balanced growth of this Sector.  However, focus will be on evolving ways and means to build expertise within the country and to find solutions for the problems existing in the system and also for the problems that may arise in the future.

To absorb high end technologies, national level R&D base is important to understand the various technologies and their advancement to work in the Indian environment.  Collaborative Research in a phased manner is needed to bridge the gap between knowledge and technology and to build expertise to find solutions for the problems existing in the system and also for problems that may arise in the future.  There is a need to form a proactive and  collaborative R&D Policy to develop innovative solutions to strengthen the Indian Power Sector through networking with research organizations, academic institutions and the power industry.

The Research Scheme on Power is intended for Research initiatives at utility level, but it also involves academia and the industry.  It has kept up the spirit of R&D in the utilities and significant contributions have come out of this scheme. The ambitious plans of MoP for rapid expansion of R&D in Indian Power sector is realized through this scheme. Collaborative R&D was initiated with active participation of private industry/academia/research institute under the National Perspective Plan R&D Scheme.  The R&D initiatives under RSOP and NPP have shown significant and high impact R&D outputs.  The R&D conclave 2012 will provide an ideal platform for taking these initiatives further for sustainable development of Power sector in India.

The Report of Working Group on Power for the 12th Plan has documented the expectations of the Indian Power Sector during the plan period.  The major areas of concern in all the thrust areas of Power have been identified and need for proactive and collaborative R&D involving industry, utility, academia, research institutes and statutory institutions have been underlined and emphasized for growth of the Power sector.

The R&D Conclave 2012 aims at bringing all the stake holders on to a common platform to brainstorm and deliberate on all important issues and crucial needs, including infrastructure development, for implementation through well planned and structured R&D.  The conclave is expected to lay the Road Map for R&D of Indian Power Sector during the 12thPlan and beyond, under the guidance and support of Ministry of Power.

The suggested topics for discussions under major thrust areas are:

Generation: Thermal Generation Ultra Super Critical (USC), IGCC TECHNOLOGY, Waste Heat Recovery Systems, Artificial Neural Network based Power Plant Optimization, Advisory and feasibility of integrating Supervisory Controls Development of advanced NDT based diagnostics and inspection tools for condition assessment of plant components.

Hydro Generation Integrated Operation of Cascade Hydro power Plants Optimization Studies for Exploitation of Hydro Potential Technological Advancement in Investigation of Hydro Projects and use of GIS/GPS Technology for Spilt Runners/Site Fabrication of Runners Development of Facilities for Large Size/Weight Casting and Forging Facilities Modernization of Automation.

Renewable Energy and Distributed Generation: Primary converters, Energy Storage: electrical and thermal storage with enhanced charge-discharge efficiencies and new technology routes, Electrical energy distribution and gridding.

Transmission: Transmission planning: national grid, smart transmission grid; Development of equipment for 1200kV and 765kV AC System Compact Transmission Line support using FRP, Development of high temperature electrical conductors for Transmission lines Design and development of Seismic Resistant Substation, pollution and Lightning mapping studies: Creating Data Repository/bank, Automation Emergency Restoration System (ERS), Development of controllers for FACTS devices.

Distribution: Automation, Customer level intelligent automation system, Computer aided monitoring and control of Distribution Transformers, Substation and feeder level automation, Data communication system for Distribution Automation, Distribution Control Centre (DCC) software, Substation and Feeder Level Automation, Intelligent Electronic Devices (IEDs), Smart Metering and SMART Grid.