Power Supply vs. Demand

A couple of days ago Delhi consumed more power in a single day than ever before. 

According to reports from the State Load Dispatch Centre (SLDC), the national capital recorded its highest ever peak power demand on Tuesday (29 June 2022) noon when it crossed 7,695MW. In the coming days this is expected to cross 8000MW - this is quite a jump from the previous recored of 7,409MW on 2 July, 2019.

The spike in demand has been attributed to the really hot and and humid summer this year with the city's Heat Index (HI) or 'real feel' temperature climbing up to 53C.

While such high temperatures are par for the course for summers in North India, what surprised many of us is near absence of power outages this year. Not once did an extended power cut knock out the inverters leaving us sleepless on sweltering, sweat-soaked bedsheets, seeking refuge on balconies teeming with mosquitos.

What explains this? 

A part of the answer comes from an oped written earlier this month by RK Singh, the current cabinet minister for power and renewable energy. Writing for the Hindustan Times, he presented some interesting numbers:

• India's capacity to generate power was 248,554 MW in 2014. in the last 8 years this has increased by 169,110MW, taking the total power generation capacity to over 400GW
• Maximum demand this year - 215 GW
• The country now has the world's largest integrated grid. Inter-regional transfer capacity has increased from 37,950MW to 112,250MW.
• At COP-21 India pledged to increase power generated from renewable energy sources to 40% by 2030. This goal has already been achieved in November 2021

What is puzzling here is the big gap between capacity and demand. Why are we ramping up power generation capacity when the actual demand is far less? 

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REFERENCES & LINKS

* SinghRK(2022): The Growth of the Energy Sector is Unparalleled, HT, 16Jun22 - https://www.business-standard.com/article/economy-policy/no-power-crisis-in-india-generation-capacity-more-than-peak-demand-govt-122031500831_1.html

* PTI (2022): No Power Crisis in India, Business Standard (15 Mar., 2022) - https://www.business-standard.com/article/economy-policy/no-power-crisis-in-india-generation-capacity-more-than-peak-demand-govt-122031500831_1.html

* GoI - Ministry for Power and Renewable Energy - https://powermin.gov.in/en/content/honble-cabinet-minister-power-new-renewable-energy

On Dogs Lovers and Power Illiteracy

Stray dogs protecting their turf (Pic source: DNA 14Dec17)

I have always found it difficult to understand the dynamics and the power of "Noble Intentions". How is it that when two sets of well meaning people, both trying in their own way to create a better society, end up making it more dysfunctonal?

Let me illustrate this with an example: stray dogs in our cities. 

Most people are wary of stray dogs, and see them as a threat, and a health hazard, while there is another set of folks, the 'Dog Lovers' who see nothing wrong in having stray dogs share our roads, parks and public spaces. If anybody gets bitten it is because they 'provoked' the dog, and therefore deserved what they got. 

Does their love for dogs extend to other animals as well? Not quite. Nobody would raise a finger, let alone filing a police case, if a harmless rat snake was beaten to pulp, or if pigs drowned in the sewers. But dogs? They are a 'man's best friend', and therefore, special.

Quite unlike the folks who get bitten on the streets, the Dog Lovers are superbly networked, and well organised. They are loud and vocal; they have the ready attention of not only the local newsreporters but also the sympathies of the Supreme Court. So when they take up cudgels on behalf of the strays, filing police reports against those who are violent towards stray dogs, naming and shaming people, all that the opposition can do is to roll over, and play dead.

How did the Dog Lovers come to weild so much power and influence? Why does our overstretched police force take on the unikely role of protecting stray dogs? The answer is simple: the law requires them to do so. 

As per Indian law, street dogs cannot be beaten, killed or driven away or displaced or dislocated. Under the Animal Birth Control (ABC Dogs) Rules, 2001  enacted under Section 38 of the Indian Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act 1960 (A Central Act), stray dogs can only be sterilized, vaccinated, and then returned back to their original locations. 

What happens when the state ABC department does not have the capacity (funds, personnel, infrastructure) to deal with an explosion in the population of stray dogs? Nobody seems to know, or care.

In NOIDA along there are an estimated 13,600 stray dogs. A few months ago, a child got severely mauled by a pack of stray dogs . When alarmed citizens got together to drive away strays and ended by beating a stray dog to death, police cases were promptly filed against them. So, at present, the very thought of messing with the Indian legal system, with its backlog of cases, is enough to deter any sensible citizen from messing with stray dogs. It is better to get bitten than to get stuck in the Indian courts.

How did a small band of Dog Lovers manage have such a disproportionate influence on the law of the land? A part of the answer lies in what has been articulated so well in Eric Liu's TED Talk - "Why Ordinary People Need to Understand Power". 

Liu rightly points out that power illiteracy all pervasive and that citizens have depressingly low levels of civic knowledge, civic engagement, participation, and awareness. They are naive about all the forms of power that are at play: money, people, ideas, information, misinformation, the threat of force, the force of norms.

Those few who do understand how power operates in civic life, those who understand how a bill becomes a law, how a friendship becomes a subsidy, or how a bias becomes a policy, or how a slogan becomes a movement, the people who understand those things wield disproportionate influence.

Clearly, Dog Lovers in India belong to the power literate elite who weild a disproportionate influence in our cities. In many ways they themselves are like the proverbial dog in the manger - they will not ease the burden on state ABC departments, nor will they stop barking at those who act against stray dogs.

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BTW

Kerala, seems to be among the few states where stray dogs do not enjoy a special status. It has citizens groups that actively participate in anti-stray dog campaigns and support the culling of strays. Across India, only the High Courts of Kerala and Karnataka have taken the position that local municipal laws prevail over the PCA Act. It is not a state of affairs that pleases the stray-dog lovers.

Thanks to this awkward state of semi-rebellion the state sees a lot of parodies centered around the helplessness of the civil society. In this one, a local alpha stray-dog, "Tiger Sabu" is being interviewed by a nervous TV news anchor, a few days after demonetization: 



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REFERENCES & LINKS

* Jaagruti - Indian street dogs and their rights - https://jaagruti.org/information-to-empower-you/indian-street-dogs-and-their-rights/
* Noida - child mauled by stray dogs - https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/noida/child-mauled-by-stray-dogs-in-greater-noida/articleshow/59198467.cms
* Animal Welfare Board of India - https://awbi.org/
* (4 Jan 2018) Hindu: Stray dog victim still in ICU - http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Delhi/stray-dog-attack-victim-still-in-icu/article22362867.ece
* (1 Apr 2018) ToI: Noida: Residents, security guards booked for thrashing stray dog to death- https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/noida/noida-residents-guards-booked-for-thrashing-stray-dog-to-death/articleshow/63565399.cms
* http://www.dnaindia.com/delhi/report-plaints-on-noida-s-stray-dog-menace-fall-on-deaf-ears-2567534
* Eric Liu's TED Talk - "Why Ordinary People Need to Understand Power" -  https://www.ted.com/talks/eric_liu_why_ordinary_people_need_to_understand_power

Solar: Upstream and Downstream

Amazing things are happening in India's renewable energy market - especially solar power.

Yesterday , it was reported that at an auction of a 250 MW capacity plant at Bhadla (Rajasthan), South Africa’s Phelan Energy Group and Avaada Power bid INR 2.62 (USD 0.04) per kilowatt-hour (kWh) to win contracts to build capacities of 50MW and 100MW, respectively, at Adani Renewable Energy Park Rajasthan Ltd. This is a new record low. The bidding wars seem to have now reached a point where experts are wondering if it is commercially viable to produce produce power at these rates.

If the unit price is surprising, so is the sheer scale of the new 'solar farms' that are coming up. The current world record the world's largest solar project in a single location is now held by Adani's 648-megawatt Kamuthi plant (near Marurai, Tamil Nadu), which went online in September, 2016. The second largest solar plant, the Topaz Solar Farm in California, has a capacity of 550 megawatts.

For a country that located in the tropics, India has a huge potential for switching over to solar energy. Consider these facts -

• The solar  radiation incident over India is equal to 4–7 kWh per square meter per day with an annual radiation ranging from 1200–2300 kWh per square meter. 
• It has an average of 250–300 clear sunny days and  2300–3200 hours  of sun shine per  year. 
• India's electricity needs can be met on a total land area of 3000 km2  which  is  equal  to  0.1%  of  total  land  in  the country 
• Currently  India is  generating  4.59%  of solar energy  of  total  produced  renewable  energy  installed capacity in India

Over the past few years, thanks to a concerted push by the government, India has quadrupled its solar-generation capacity from 2,650 MW on 26 May 2014 to 12,289 MW in 10 March 2017.  Yet, behind all these impressive numbers, fact remains that present and future growth is completely hinged on the import of equipment from China. In 2015-16, the value of imported solar cells and modules tripled to $2.34 billion, with China accounting for 83 per cent ( $1.9 billion).

Despite having a dedicated Ministry for New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) for the past 15 years, why is it that India has not been able to it own supply chains? Why is it that Indian manufacturers have no access to domestic upstream raw material supplies of poly-silicon and wafers?

According to a KPMG report (2015), India has not been able to create economies of scale in solar manufacturing, mainly due to insufficient government support - loans, tax holidays, subsidized utility services, easy access to land and technology support.

Is that a rather simplistic view?


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REFERENCES & LINKS

* (2017) Wire - Why Increasing India’s Solar Energy Capacity Won’t Work -- https://thewire.in/116842/solar-energy-india-capacity/

* (2017) Mint - http://www.livemint.com/Industry/MKI7QvOhpRoBAtw3d4PM5K/South-African-firm-bid-takes-solar-power-tariffs-to-new-low.html

* (2017) - Solar panel imports - https://www.zauba.com/import-solar-panel-hs-code.html -- HSCode - 39209919

* (2017) - http://indianexpress.com/article/business/economy/pm-modi-calls-for-all-solar-power-city-model-stresses-job-creation-4648770/

* (2016-Dec) -- http://indianexpress.com/article/india/indias-87-per-cent-solar-cell-imports-from-china-in-april-september-piyush-goyal-4417312/

* (2016) - BL - Import of solar panels triples in 2015-16 -  http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/economy/import-of-solar-panels-triples-in-201516/article8788743.ece

* (2016) - Adani's Kamuthi Solar Power Project - http://www.ecowatch.com/india-solar-market-2118202661.html

* (2016) - India's solar energy push to generate 1 mn green jobs -- http://www.business-standard.com/content/b2b-manufacturing-industry/india-s-solar-energy-push-to-generate-1-mn-green-jobs-116021500523_1.html
- Report by Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW) -- ‘Filling the skill gap in India’s clean energy market: Solar energy focus’
- The country will need new skilled workforce & training to achieve its ambitious national target to add 100 gigawatts (GW) of installed solar energy by 2022
- one million new engineers, technicians, solar installers, maintenance workers and performance data monitors
- International Solar Alliance (ISA) -  alliance of more than 120 solar-rich countries aims to facilitate widespread deployment of solar power and supporting knowledge exchange on manufacturing and skills.

* (2015) - DTE - WTO rules against India in Domestic Contents Reqirements for the Solar Industry -- http://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/wto-rules-against-india-s-domestic-content-requirements-in-solar-power-50977
- Indian manufacturing capacity of solar cells and modules is limited to 1,386 MW and 2,756 MW respectively. The Mission's target at the time of the complaint stood at 10,000 MW to be achieved in the period from 2013 to 2017.
- Since the solar target has been revised to 100,000 MW or 100 GW by the Modi government, the target now stands at 29,000 MW.

* (2015) - Research Paper - Potential of Solar Energy in India - https://www.researchgate.net/publication/306034848_Potential_of_Solar_Energy_in_India_A_Review
-  The solar  radiation incident over India is equal to 4–7 kWh per square meter per day with an annual radiation ranging from 1200–2300 kWh per square meter.
- It has an average of 250–300 clear sunny days and  2300–3200 hours  of sun shine per  year.
- India's electricity needs can be met on a total land area of 3000 km2  which  is  equal  to  0.1%  of  total  land  in  the country

Potential of Solar Energy in India
- Currently  India is  generating  4.59%  of solar energy  of  total  produced  renewable  energy  installed capacity in India

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* India Solar Resource Maps - http://mnre.gov.in/sec/solar-assmnt.htm
* NREL - National Renewable Energy Lab - http://www.nrel.gov/international/ra_india.html

* International Solar Alliance (ISA) - http://intsolaralliance.org/

* (2016) Yes Bank - Compendium of Global Success Stories in Solar - http://intsolaralliance.org/docs/CompendiumofGlobalSuccessStoriesinSolarEnergy.pdf

* (2015) - KPMG Solar Manufacturing Report - http://www.energetica-india.net/download.php?seccion=articles&archivo=3Eksv7L8BosildPLOdK84G1zZk6Ew1co6BVp8hm0LThwxw9APH9HOx8.pdf

* Wiki - List of solar manufacturing companies - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_photovoltaics_companies

Solar Lighting a Dark Stairwell

How much does it take to set up a solar-powered system?

I've been mulling over the installation of a solar-based back-up for a while now. For starters, I wanted to install a self-contained system that automatically lights up our building stairwell. 

The problem is quite straightforward: We stay in an apartment complex that has about 30 towers (4x4 houses each), without a central power back-up. Each apartment has a stairwell that is vulnerable to power outages. At night - especially in winters - it becomes particularly difficult for the children and the elderly to use the staircases.

From whatever little I have gathered so far from the net, a solar-panel based lighting system would require: solar panels, a charge Controller, a deep discharge battery, wiring (4mm), a light-activated switch, and a panel of LED lights.

What I do not know for sure - and this is an ongoing challenge -  are questions for which I am yet to find dependable advise:

• How do I align the panels on the terrace so that they can be installed - and maintained -  easily?
• The most appropriate configuration of panel + controller + battery + LED panels?
• Which is a reliable place from where I can buy the components?

At least in NCR Delhi, it is difficult to find somebody who can guide you. The shopkeepers and aggregators always want to sell you the biggest system possible, whether you need it or not. They are all chasing contracts from big-ticket clients - the railways, public-sector companies, large housing complexes to keep the assembly lines running. Companies like Simpa Networks are building models that resemble telecom service providers. Not for them the one-time pocket-change from individual residences.

Reliability is also an issue. Almost none of the components comes with a performance guarantee. The usual refrain is "electronic cheez hai, kuch bhi ho sakta hai..." (its electronic stuff - anything can go wrong!). Not an encouraging start for people who see this as a long-term investment in clean energy.

Amongst all the people I have met, the most sensible advise came from a marketing executive at Maharshi Vedic Construction. His point was simple - longevity of any equipment depends on how you go about maintaining it. He gave the example of an inverter he has installed at home 17 years ago. According to him, regular vacuum cleaning and greasing is all it takes to make electrical equipment last longer. Clearly he had a point.

Yet, even as a manufacturer of solar panels and controllers, he could not offer a formal performance guarantee for the stuff he was selling. His panels cost INR40/Wa, so a 60Wa panel cost INR2400. The controllers were available only for 10A and 20A with a starting price of INR1100 (note: the 10A model came with a useful USB charging port).

Ultimately, I ended up buying the following stuff from the electonics wholesale market at Bhagirathi Palace, Old Delhi:

- Solar Panel Tata BP - 60Wa (INR 1200)

- Charge Controller - (INR 250)

- LED lights set - 12W (INR 150)

- Twilight Switch - 12V, 6A (INR 368) - from Electrocine Corp, 1801/5-6, Bhagirath Palace

- Copper wire (INR 160 for 10m - Kalinga Gold 4mm copper wire) 

- Battery - 26Ah, 12V

I was about to purchase a new 28Ah battery when a friend offered to pass on an old battery he was going to dump anyway. It has been purchased a year ago but seemed to have got completely discharged due to non-use. It took three about three days for the voltage to climb over 12V.

Apart from the battery glitch, the system seems to be working beautifully. 

Now, only a few questions remain: The battery runs out of juice in just four hours...is the LED panel drawing out more power than 12W? Or is it just an old, deep-discharged SMF battery acting up? How does one measure the W/h remaining in a battery unit?

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Vendor's Contacts:

* DC Twilight Switch - Electrocine Sales Corp, 1801/5-6 Electrical Market, Bhagirati Palace - www.escorp.in 

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LINKS & REFERENCES

* Bijli Bachao - solar panels in India - https://www.bijlibachao.com/solar/solar-panel-cell-cost-price-list-in-india.html

* Understanding Solar Power - an excellent resource that brings "Solar Power to Ordinary People"-- https://livingonsolarpower.wordpress.com/  

* Instructables - Solar charges with day-night switch - http://www.instructables.com/id/Solar-charger-with-day-night-switch-v2/

- 2N3904 NPN Transistor, linked to photo transistor and then using a 100k pot to regulate the sensitivity level.
- Day-night switch - http://www.ebay.in/itm/222242083233?aff_source=Sok-Goog
- INR 292 on EBay

- Solar charge controllers - https://www.batterystuff.com/solar-chargers/charge-controllers/

Tech Capability Gaps

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Sometime back, while commenting on the BlackBerry encrypton controversy, Saubik Chakrabarti (IE 11 Aug.2010) had pointed out :

"...not all Big Brothers are equally capable. Some tech observers say BlackBerry does not pose a problem to some major countries because their security agencies are in the masterclass of decryption...


"This raises a question for India — a middling power with a self-narrative of technological capability. To what extent are India’s security services’ anxieties a reflection of their less-than-stellar technological capabilities? Do India’s espiocrats sound slightly desperate sometimes because at the high end of the national security business we have a capability gap just as we do at the low end (fighting Maoists with ill-equipped, lowly-paid forces)?"

This thought keeps coming back to me again and again, whenever I read something about India's efforts at absorbing technology, or when I compare it with the proactive way in which Chinese soak in advanced technology. While our neighbor is busy "digesting" foreign technology to create its own high-tech industries - aerospace, high-speed railway networks, communications and logistics - we seem to be busy tying ourselves in knots.

And now Obama is coming to help us with another knot - its called the End Use Monitoring Agreement (EUMA).  This may effectively bar us from retrofitting and adapting equipment to our own needs without the Original Equipment Manufacturers' (OEMs) consent and participation for the entire duration of its service, which, in the case of the U.S. has almost never permitted.

This brings us back to Saubik's point about India's self-narrative about technological capability. For decades fooled ourselves into believing that our bureaucrats knew all there is to know about "indigenous expertise". Along the way we have stifled and red-taped not only public organisations like HAL and DRDO but also our best engineering schools.

And now its time to pay the price - in royalties and license-fees -  for our delusions and day-dreams.

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REFERENCES & LINKS -

Berry, berry complicated (Saubik Chakrabarti, Indian Express, 11 Aug.2010)
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/berry-berry-complicated/658879/0

Threat to innovative fix-dependent system (Rahul Bedi, The Hindu, 3 Nov. 2010)
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/article865356.ece?homepage=true

Zangger's Club

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After securing the Nuclear Supplier Group (NSG) approval, India has signed civilian nuclear cooperation agreements with states as diverse as Britain, France, Russia, Kazakhstan, Namibia, Angola and most recently, Canada. Yet, if US and French civilian nuclear cooperation with India is to be realised an Indo-Japanese pact is essential simply because some the leaders in nuclear-power technology are Japanese joint-ventures like GE-Hitachi and Toshiba-Westinghouse.

So, what is it that links the Nuclear Supplier Group (NSG) and Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to issues related to civilian nuclear tech-cooperation? The answer - Zangger Committee.

The Zangger Committee, also known as the Nuclear Exporters Committee, sprang from Article III.2 of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) which entered into force on March 5, 1970. Under the terms of Article III.2 International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards must be applied to nuclear exports. It is basically an informal club maintains and updates a list of equipment that may only be exported if safeguards are applied to the recipient facility (called the "Trigger List" because such exports trigger the requirement for safeguards); and allows members to coordinate on nuclear export issues.

NSG members are also Zangger committee members - except for Brazil, New Zealand and Ukraine. I wonder why...

Other interesting questions:

What does the "trigger list" contain?

How have the the NSG members with nuclear weapon stockpiles (US, UK, Russia, China etc.,) managed to persuade the others to toe their line? What were the inducements, incentives or , to quote Don Corleone, "offers which they could not refuse"?

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LINKS -

Beyond the Mushroom Cloud, Harsh V Pant, Indian Express 25 Aug 2010 - http://www.indianexpress.com/news/beyond-the-mushroom-cloud/664501/0

Statement on Civilian Nuclear Cooperation with India - http://www.armscontrol.org/system/files/20080906_Final_NSG_Statement.pdf

Zangger Committee - Mission Statement - http://www.zanggercommittee.org/Mission/Seiten/default.aspx

FAS: Membership of ZanggerC and NSG - http://www.fas.org/nuke/control/nsg/member.htm

IAEA - Treaty for Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (22 April 1970) - http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Documents/Infcircs/Others/infcirc140.pdf

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