India plans to create Power Islanding systems

India plans to create power islanding systems in several cities of the country to protect the critical infrastructures from potential attacks on the electricity grid of the nation.

Key Points

• Bengaluru and Jamnagar, which has two of India’s largest oil refineries, are included in the cities which are being assessed for an islanding system.
• Cities such as Mumbai and New Delhi having existing systems are being revamped.
• In the year 2020 a major power outage occurred in Mumbai which brought the city to a halt and this prompted speculation about a cyber attack on the cities power grid.
• In 2019, India’s nuclear power monopoly reported that computer systems at one of its generation plants were attacked by malware.
• Around the world power grids are being continuously digitalized which leaves them vulnerable to such potential attacks. Hence, the Indian government is planning to create power island systems in the major cities of the country.

About Islanding systems

Islanding systems feature generation capacity and can automatically isolate from the main grid during an outage. For the new systems to be installed, the provinces need to submit proposals for setting up storage and generation capacities.

Reji Pillai, president of the India Smart Grid Forum, has recommended smart micro grids for isolating the smaller areas, such as industrial and commercial complexes, airports, shopping malls, hospitals, defense units and railway stations. This system would be connected to the main network and will automatically isolate during an outage. The micro grids would run on a mix of rooftop solar power and battery.

Month: Current Affairs - July, 2021