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At the recently concluded Copenhagen Summit on climate change and energy conservation, great stress was laid on reducing the carbon footprint of all nations, with special emphasis on developing nations like India.

Smart grid-a system that can provide uninterrupted electricity 24x7 to consumers across the nation, even in remote locations, while eliminating wastage of power units and therefore tripping-is perhaps the magic solution we have been waiting for.

It will be a big business for telcos in India. In essence, smart grid is an intelligent future electricity system that connects all supply, grid and demand elements through an intelligent communication system. The backbone of a successful smart grid operation is a resilient, highly secure, manageable, and standards based open communication infrastructure that links the elements of the grid while participating in the decision making that delivers value to the utility, supply and demand entities connected to it.

The recently completed Smart 2020 study, undertaken by The Climate Group and the Global e-Sustainability Initiative, found that ICT enabled solutions in four key sectors, namely-smart power grids, smart buildings, smart logistics and supply chains, and smart motor systems in manufacturing processes-can bring about a global carbon emission reduction of up to 15% by 2020.

Current Scenario
The US Department of Energy estimates savings of more than $1.1 bn through its 'Green Grid' MoU, targeting 2011 for a 10.7 bn kWh reduction in data center power consumption.

As the telecom industry continues to deploy more data centers to service messaging and video subscribers, evaluating the power architecture for these data centers becomes relevant.

Telecom power systems in the past seven to ten years have delivered 92% efficiency, while legacy ferro resonant systems that are still in widespread use today are only 85% efficient. Lineage Power TE solutions reduce the energy loss and associated cooling requirements by 50-70% as loss is reduced from 15% or 8% to a mere 3%. Equally important is that the TE solutions deliver peak efficiency across a wide range of operating load conditions, whereas legacy ferro technologies may only be 75% efficient under typical operating loads.

M2M application is another area where telecom space can utilize smart grid technology in a big way.

According to Pradeep Dwivedi, senior VP, product development, TTSL, "M2M space is growing rapidly, more and more service/utility companies, including TTSL, are adopting smart technologies to monitor operations online. There is an increasing need for individuals/professionals to be presented with an integrated, smart interface which can address their need for accessing voice, data, dynamic content, etc, in a seamless manner. Hence, we need to launch tightly bundled services which combine devices, competitive data plans and unique content for significant market segments. Additionally, this is about enabling the networking of machines and devices that pervade our daily lives to improve productivity and unleash the next wave of commerce innovations."

Thus, while smart grid has had modest success abroad, India is not very far behind.

Government Initiatives
Today, despite various programs initiated by the Ministry of Power, some 400 mn Indians still have no access to electricity. While 80% Indian villages have an electricity line, just 44% of rural households have access to electricity. With a demand-supply gap of 66 bn units and peak shortage of 16,000 MW, it is estimated that India needs to add an additional 80,000 MW of generation capacity by the year 2012. This implies that a major structural revision is needed if we are to achieve 'power for all' by 2012.

First introduced in 1991, reforms in the power sector were taken a step further by the Electricity Act 2003 and then through the Accelerated Power Development Program (APDP) that was renamed as the APDRP in 2002-03. The focus was to look at the distribution sector in a holistic manner, and improve performance in all segments. The main objectives of the APDRP were improving financial viability of the state electricity boards, reduction of T&D losses to around 10%, improving customer satisfaction, increasing reliability of power supply, improving quality of supply, adopting systems approach with MIS, and bringing transparency through computerization.

However, as the Planning Commission noted, the APDRP scheme fell short of expectations. Out of the Rs 176.12 bn worth of projects sanctioned till March 2005, total investment made was only Rs 57.68 bn or 32.75%. As for reducing AT&C losses, it merely came down to 35% from 40% over a period of five years, as against a target of 15%. More so, the AT&C losses varied widely between states from 18% to as much as 60%.

Owing the failure of APDRP, the central government came out with the R-APDRP scheme, with the aim of restoring commercial viability of the distribution sector by putting in place mechanisms that lead to a substantial reduction in aggregate technical and commercial (AT&C) losses.

According to Dwivedi, "Smart grid is an end-to-end automation and control mechanism for power generation-right from transmission to distribution. While generation and transmission has been semi/partially automated by companies like NTPC, NHPC, BHEL, and PGCIL, power distribution has seen less than 1% automation through AMR. Hence, smart grid may follow only after sizable smart metering implementation. We see active participation of various distribution companies to implement smart metering, and various government initiatives like R-APDRP are right steps in this direction. We expect smart grid technology to come actively in next 24-36 months once smart metering is in place."

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