With a population of over a billion people and a current GDP growth rate of about 8 percent, India is certainly one of the fastest growing countries in the world.
Despite its robust economic growth, the country is still plagued by basic problems such as shortage of electricity, with nearly 40 percent of its rural households having no access to electricity.
Although India has almost doubled its energy generation in the past decade by adding over 85 GW of capacity, its grid systems lose more than 30 GW of this generated power. This is highly disturbing to people working in the power sector in India, who are concerned with the efficiency of the distribution of electricity.
The World Resources Institute estimates electricity transmission and distribution losses in India to be 27 percent – the highest in the world. This is a huge wastage of one of the most environmentally unfriendly commodities to produce.
These insights lead Technavio to believe that India needs the help of new technology to ensure better monitoring and control of electricity transmission and distribution.
A Smart Grid is a digital electrical grid that facilitates the gathering and distribution of information with regard to the usage of power by suppliers and consumers. This will lead to electricity services becoming more reliable, efficient, cost-effective, and environmentally conscious.
Advantages of Smart Grid Technology
- Help businesses reduce their carbon footprint
- New opportunities for tech companies
- Reduce cost of power cuts
- Meet increasing demand for power supply in India
However, electricity service companies have been reluctant to delve into newer untested technologies, and India’s power sector is no different. But it is about time it started taking notice of the benefits of Smart Grids.
For instance, Italy’s Telegestore project, which is widely considered to be the first full scale commercial use of Smart Grids to all homes in a specific area, allows for savings of approximately 500 Million Euros annually at a project cost of around 2.1 Billion Euros.
To conclude, Smart Grids would also help avoid power outages as it would automatically detect a fault in the power supply, before restoring power to all the affected parties.
Overall, it would allow the power sector in India to flourish, leaving behind the days of power cuts, wastage, and archaic electricity distribution technologies.
