Institutional Capacity Building of the Load Despatch Centres in India

摘要

In India there are close to forty (40) Load Despatch Centres (control centres) for power system andelectricity market operation. In order to assess capabilities of these Load Despatch Centres (LDCs), anationwide survey was conducted with the help of a questionnaire. This paper draws inferences fromthe findings of the survey. It emphasizes that institutional capacity building of the LDCs in India ishighly relevant in view of the ongoing reforms and restructuring, increasing vulnerabilities of theinterconnected grid, rapid growth in the interconnection size, generation capacity addition,equipment/human failure, cyber attacks, environmental threats and fast changing regulatoryframework in India. The paper argues that the effective coordination amongst the system operators cancome by establishing functional and financial autonomy of the LDCs as well as by strengthening thecapabilities of the human resource working in the LDC.The paper provides an overview of the recent initiatives being taken by the policy makers, regulatorsand the utilities in India for institutional capacity building of the LDCs. Most significant amongstthese are the recommendations of the committee constituted by the Union Ministry of Power (MoP),Government of India (GoI) on manpower, certification, and incentives for system operation and ringfencing of LDCs; the report of the various task forces set up by the MoP for implementation of therecommendation of the committee; the Regulations on fees and charges of the LDCs notified by theElectricity Regulatory Commission; the formation of Forum of Load Despatchers (FOLD); thecreation of ISO structure for operation of the National and Regional LDCs; and the programme fortraining and certification of power system operators in India being undertaken. The paper opines thatthe recent initiatives are significant as they would help in improving the awareness of the overall statusof the interconnected power system in India and coordination amongst the System Operators. It arguesthat institutional capacity building of the LDCs in India would be instrumental in synergizing thebenefits of the various reform initiatives in the sector. The paper also highlights the various issuesbeing faced in the implementation of the various initiatives and provides a future outlook.