Driving energy growth rate in top-gear

Shitij Khattar, Director – Operations, Vishal Group

“To keep up with the GDP growth rate, power sector needs to grow at approximately twice the GDP rate”

Shitij Khattar, Director – Operations, Vishal Group firmly believes that development in true sense happens when even the poorest has access to electricity.

The significant and emerging trends in the transformer industry
In the transformer industry, more emphasis is now being given on preventing explosive/catastrophic failures, in view of extensive damage such events cause. In order to prevent explosive failures, RIP (resin impregnated paper)/RIS (resin impregnated synthetics) bushings are now replacing OIP (oil impregnated paper) bushings. Such RIP & RIS bushings are now being used on 72kV & above transformers. Also, ester based oils are now being tried on lower kV power transformers, in place of mineral transformer oils.

Improving global competitiveness
The global competitiveness of Indian transformer industry can definitely be propagated by the government by displaying the quality capability of Indian transformer manufacturers in various international forums/exhibitions. The Indian transformer industry has very high capacity and caters to international market’s requirements. One important component of transformer material cost, is CRGO laminations. These CRGO laminations are essentially imported to India. The reputed CRGO lamination manufacturers should be encouraged to start manufacturing in India. In our opinion, this will bring down the cost of transformers and make it competitive in global market. Similarly, internationally reputed insulating oil manufacturers should be invited to setup transformer oil refining industry in India.

Enhancing quality and reliability
Efficient and reliable delivery of electricity is mainly dependent on quality and reliability of power system components. The utilities have to put more emphasis on quality capability of products delivered by the manufacturer rather than evaluating only based on “L1” as the only decision making criteria. This will enhance quality of products manufactured by Indian industry and this will also aid to global competitiveness of Indian industry.

To keep up with the GDP growth rate
Power is one of the key sectors driving India’s infrastructure growth. Therefore, it is imperative for our country’s power sector to execute a planned and scalable ‘capacity-enhancement-model’. This in-turn will provide a major contirbution to India’s GDP growth by making it power surplus!

To keep up with the GDP growth rate, power sector needs to grow at approximately twice the GDP rate of growth as per industry experts. Power or electricity are reflection of infrastructure affecting economic growth and welfare of the country. India is the 5th largest producer of electricity in the world and has a huge hydro power potential of 148 GW, out of which only 42 GW has been realised till date. So, there is a huge potential to harness this energy.

Energy and electricity lay the foundation for India’s economic growth
Since the year 2000, India’s energy consumption has nearly doubled. And, as per the current trend, it holds true for the next two decades as well. India will account for approximate 25 per cent of global increase in enerygy consumption during the same period. Therefore, energy and electricity will lay the foundation for India’s economic growth. The government’s energy reforms will definitely assist in achieveing a two-fold growth. Make-in-India, Digital India and various power schemes have been helping in driving the energy growth rate in top-gear.

Rajiv Gandhi Grameen Vidyutikaran Yojana (RGGVY)
RGGVY was launched in April 2005 by merging all ongoing schemes. Under the programme, 90 per cent grant is provided by Government of India and 10 per cent as loan by Rural Electrification Corporation (REC) to the State Governments. Rural Electrification Corporation (REC) is the nodal agency for the programme.

The scheme aimed at electrification of over 1 lakh unelectrified villages and providing electricity connections to 2.34 crore rural households. The estimated cost of the scheme is approximately
₹ 51,000 crore. This scheme gained momentum during the current governments’ tenure.

Development in true sense happens when even the poorest has access to most basic facilities of life such as food, shelter, medical support, clean water, education, electricity etc. This scheme has been on the fore front in driving India’s economic growth.

The benefits and need of green transformer
Green transformer – this term has come a long way from concept stage to implementation stage. There has always been a need for environment friendly energy generation and distribution. A green transformer is a building block in achieving this task. The salient features of a green transformer are eco-efficiency, reduced noise level, increased safety and reliability and reduction in carbon footprint.

A green transformer uses finer grade of CRGO, like amorphous steel. This helps reduce no-load and load losses of the transformer. Although, the initial cost of procurement of asset is on the higher side, the cost of ownership decreases every year. It helps reduces the carbon footprint of the power grid also. Use of ester oil also results in a higher efficiency design, which further results in reduction of transmission and distribution losses.