Transmission as per geographical region, aids in service specific needs

Various algorithms to stop ‘man-in-the-middle’ attacks already exist, but newer improved versions will be needed given the critical nature of power supply.

In an interaction with Athira Bejoy, Saurabh Shrivastava – Director of India Utilities Business, Climate Connect Ltd., shares why he thinks India’s physical transmission infrastructure needs to be more robust and reliable in general, especially, as more renewable come on to the grid.

Transition to a renewable-driven grid
The grid is becoming increasingly complex and we have to consider raw generation, supply, and also transmission and distribution (T&D) in both separate and interconnected contexts. One significant reason being the transition to a renewable-driven grid. Each geographical region has distinct conditions and requirement profiles. For example, many of the larger states have widely different weather conditions and population distribution from one end to the other, and metropolitan cities bear no resemblance to rural townships. So, separation would allow aggregator technologies to come in and enable new retail-only players to enter the market and service specific needs. This can include measures for greater transparency at more granular levels to enable power trading.

Another aspect which will be better enabled by a retail market is beyond-the-meter services. E.g. auto response and control in the home of appliances and AC through smart meters. If cost saving benefits to the consumer can be shown, they will accept both market changes, and external smart control. This evolution will take some time and be implemented step-by-step. But is a path corroborated by the CEA.

DISCOMs to buy from GENCOs, only with certain credit
Many factors set DISCOMs in a hindered position to pay their dues on time to GENCOs. But the primary reason is that they themselves are not being paid on time, or even at all, by many of their own customers – most notably from the agriculture sector and rural areas.

Following certain regulatory amendments taking effect in Q3 of this year, DISCOMs are only allowed to buy from GENCOs, if they have suitable levels of credit. This is now a for key criteria securing any supply, and has had some success in making improvements, but having only been implemented recently, the benefits are yet to be fully realised. It also only tackles one dimension of the challenge.

A retail market coming into play would also help DISCOMs here. The current setup puts less
stress on end-consumers to pay on time. Enabling separate retail businesses, with a focus purely on retail provision, would enable better payment behaviour to be driven, and faster revenue realisation. This would have a flow up benefit to GENCOs, and also banks which are in turn owed dues by the GENCOs.

Separation of feeders, for better analytics, accountability, and vigilance
One of the major drivers of the UDAY 1.0 scheme coming in to play was the reduction of AT&C losses. This was supposed to be achieved in two ways, firstly, through infrastructure improvements, e.g. transmission lines and secondly, commercial improvement through avenues such as theft reduction. In terms of policy, there remains an important need for stricter treatment of power theft. It is, currently, not deemed a serious offence, as compared to other forms of theft. Higher fines are needed to provide a stronger deterrence. The stick-like approach of drastically increasing fines is required for needed behavioral changes, such as through instilling a greater concern in customers about personal monetary loss.

From an operations perspective, losses would also be reduced by the separation of feeders, particularly rural from urban supply. This will enable better analytics, accountability, and vigilance of where losses are coming from. Technical losses and commercial loss often mix indeterminately as there is not enough clarity of accountability. Previous programs, such as R-APDRP, had poor efficiency for this very reason, at less than 25 percent due to insufficient accountability. A policy mandate around technology is sorely needed such as for suitable central monitoring systems. The technology already exists and is available on the market but requires good data availability which is currently poor.

More renewables come on to the grid
India’s physical transmission infrastructure needs to be more robust and reliable in general, especially, as more renewables come on to the grid. For example, currently, certain sections can fail due to just a moderate increase in wind speed. Both line-level and asset-level infrastructure are very old and need a wholesale revamp. This ranges from transformers and sub stations, to insulation devices.

A wholesale revamp at national scale is, of course, a hugely capital and time intensive endeavor. One prominent example would be drone-based monitoring to visually observe where damage has occurred or preemptively where it might be imminent. Drones can also be used to monitor for power theft. At present, there are high limitations on drone use. A policy change would be required to provide need exemptions for the power sector.

Another non-physical solution is better real-time data monitoring and alerting systems. Predictive analytics can be used to identify systems, components, or wiring, which are generally expected to fail in over few weeks, or months, and which needs preemptive action to be taken. There are many parameters which are relatively straight forward to monitor, like temperature variation. This is comparable to detecting cancers in the body through heat variations, by using a heat camera and other damage detecting devices.

For renewable, danger comes in as automation increases
Considering the energy sector more widely, attacks on the supply-side have happened in the recent past. The most notable example being a hydro electric plant, where a malicious actor changed the plant’s control code to increase the current above the maximum rating, causing a blow out of the main generator and transformer.

Though this is still very rare, it shows that there is a threat from malicious attackers.

• Attacks on renewable energy assets are currently less because most control activity involves read-only parameters from sensors, without any feedback or active control.
• This is currently very limited for the Indian grid, because activity on it still is predominantly based on passive reading of parameters. A third imminent relevant use-case is EV charging infrastructure. So, for renewables, and across the grid, the danger comes in as automation increases.

There will be many providers for control and optimisation, using cloud-based servers and access. This will increase the points of vulnerability that a hacker can exploit. To offset the dangers across the grid, we will have to employ robust and sophisticated security controls and algorithms. Significant proactive investment will be required in infrastructure, processing power, and software to handle all the extra signaling and data processing.

Hindering EPC processes
Land acquisition
The price of the land is one of the factors, for example where owners overly inflate prices. Such inflation is to be expected, any seller would naturally want to maximise their profit. These can include direct profit-sharing over time, as well as indirect incentives such as educational opportunities and support for families and communities. To this end, a better central database would assuage a swathe of such disagreements. Such land tracking and surveys have long been a vaunted use-case for blockchain.

Logistics
It has its own cost challenges, in the form of tariff and taxation issues. The cliché of China made components are much cheaper won’t change anytime soon. So, either better direct tax breaks are needed, or some broader incentivising tie back to campaigns like Make in India. A more effective long-term measure would be to encourage foreign investment into the local market. Proven initiatives include tax holidays, shorter approval windows, and giving priority status for easier applications. Such steps will also offer additional benefits – by helping to reduce the cost of equipment, stimulating local competition, reducing trade deficits, and increasing local employment.

Engineering
In the pursuit of achieving the lowest project costs possible, companies inevitably cut corners. This is understandable when upfront capital expenditure is high, and margins thin. But these percolate detriments along the chain especially, when multiple sub-contractors are used, so overall project is visibility reduced. For example, build outs of new renewable plant where subcontractors may use substandard electrical materials from basic fuses and cables, and even up to turbine part.

The best way to control this is better and more prescriptive auditing to ensure quality is maintained. Auditing can be done during or post construction by using tools to stress test specific aspects. This will entail more capital expenditure upfront, it will mean less maintenance and operational expenditure over time and contribute to lower costs of power for end consumers.

Saurabh Shrivastava,Director of India Utilities Business, Climate Connect Ltd.