Power distribution to be automated in city

Power distribution to be automated in city
Bescom has planned a Rs 450-crore project to ensure power supply to the city is never interrupted.
The Times of India


In an effort to reduce power outages and increase the reliability index to match international standards, the Bangalore Electricity Supply Company (Bescom) has chalked out a mammoth project costing around Rs 450 crores that involves automation of the power distribution system of the entire city. Speaking on the project, the newly appointed Managing Director of Bescom, Kumar Naik, said, "the project is a step towards Distribution Management System, the final platform that envisages integration of consumer index based on global information system (GIS), interactive voice response system (IVRS), work management system, energy auditing system, and management information system through local area network (LAN) at the distribution automation master station. In other words, instituting distribution automation systems interface with all intelligent systems. This simply means that the distribution system will go online, where we will achieve real time solutions for all aspects concerning power distribution and interruptions".

He said, "the project is the brainchild of Ministry of Power (MoP). The MoP is coordinating between the Delhi and Karnataka governments to implement the project but we will be the first to go for this project. A detailed project report of the proposal for automation was sent to MoP and in turn it was forwarded to the Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC), the funding agency. After they received the proposal the JBIC sent a Special Assistance for Project Formation (SAPROF) team from Japan Electric Supply Company to prepare a feasibility report. Now, the draft proposal has reached us, there are minor changes in the proposal submitted by them such as emphasis on two master control stations for north and south circles of Bangalore but by and large it is complimenting our proposal, which is a good sign".
H N Dattatreya, Executive Assistant to Director Technical, who is the coordinator for the project said, "the total outages in Bangalore is 86 hours that translates to approximately four days in year, whereas in developed countries like Japan, the total outage for a year is close to eight minutes. This project will drastically reduce this gap. We are aiming at bringing it down to two hours from 86 hours. The main reason so far for long disruptions is the time taken for fault detection whereas rectification by and large doesn't take much time. With the new system in place, the time lost on detection is eliminated. This in turn will speed up restoration work". Also, the new system allows the distribution system to change the channel of distribution the second a fault occurs in the original channel. This means the enduser would receive uninterrupted supply as the flow is not affected at all.

The scope of the work involves drawing of around 1,000 km of 11 KV lines both underground and above the ground to connect to the existing Ring Main Units (junction boxes located on roadsides all around the city) to suit distribution automation, retrofitting the RMU with motorised mechanism to rectify tripping, providing 950 sectionalisers (equipment that diverts power through other lines) with communication facility, installing Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SKADA) at all sub-stations, and establishing Master Control Centers. The project will be carried out in three phases and will be completed in two years. Under Phase I, EPIP Area, Electronic City, and Peenya Industrial Area will be taken up. In Phase II, distribution automation of the entire RMUs (under ground cabling) along with improvements for overhead distribution lines to suit automation will be taken up and finally under Phase III, automation of distribution of the entire overhead network will be taken up.

Power situation
It is good news for Bangaloreans as power situation couldn't have got better with surplus rains in catchment areas of the city resulting in hydel stations pumping more power. Bangalore, which accounts for more than 70 percent of the total revenue for the Bescom consumes around 20 million units of the total 50 million units required for the entire State per annum. The General Manager (Technical) of Bescom, S Ramesh, said, "there is no dearth of power in the State now as Raichur Thermal Power Station (RTPS) I, II, III and Sharavathy hydel plant are successfully contributing a large chunk of pooled power".

On the Transmission and Distribution loss, he said it was plugged at 21.22 percent which is substantially lower than that of last year and added that since it takes Rs 150 crores to plug one percent of T&D loss, it was financially not viable to moot any project in this direction. However, he said with automation of distribution, power thefts and leakages could be reduced.

On hike in power price, the General Manager said a proposal to increase the electricity charges by 12 percent has been forwarded to the Karnataka Electricity Regulatory Commission (KERC) and their reply is awaited.