Grid failures a trigger to fasten sectoral reforms: Tata

**New Delhi:**TheCountry’s largest privateelectricity producer Tata Power on Friday said there cannot be abetter trigger than this week’s grid failures to speed upreforms for ushering in more investments into the sector.

Asserting that grid failures are avoidable, Tata Powernoted that expanding electricity generation capacity is theonly option.

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“There could not be a better trigger to set off reformsfor the power sector reforms enabling increased investmentinto power generation to help meet the country’s 12th FiveYear Plan target of 88,000 MW,” Tata Power Managing DirectorAnil Sardana said in a statement.

Pushing the country into a major power crisis, threemajor grids- North, Eastern and North Eastern- tripped on 31July afternoon, affecting more than half of the population.

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The failure happened less than 24 hours after Northern Gridwas restored following its collapse on July 30 early morning.

“There needs to be enforcement of automated andco-ordinated relay system as also strict governance onfrequency regimes to avoid grid failures similar to the oneexperienced over the last few days…,” Sardana said.

He noted that management of distribution companies haveto be made accountable for 24x7 reliable supply and fiscalmanagement.

Tata Power, which is implementing the country’s firstultra mega power project at Mundra in Gujarat, said reformsrelated to fuel supply needed to be addressed on an immediatebasis.

According to Tata Power, islanding scheme- of havingseparate electricity transmission services for certain areas-could help in addressing problems arising out of failure ofgrids.

The islanding scheme, pioneered by the company in 1981,has helped Mumbai consumers every time grid failures happened since 1995, the statement said.

“This islanding scheme has worked brilliantly for Mumbaiconsumers achieving a 100% success rate in each of 16occasions that there have been such grid failures since 1995,“it noted.

Sardana pointed out that even during the existing gridfailures, Tata Power’s Jojobera (Jamshedpur) units islandedthemselves with Jamshedpur load and continued operations.

“Similar concept needs to be implemented with load endgeneration for most of the generating units which are linkedto such configuration of loads,” he added.

Meanwhile, once fully operational, the 4,000 MW MundraUMPP would help in meeting about two percent of the country’senergy needs, the statement said.

Currently, Tata Power has an installed generationcapacity of 6,099 MW.

PTI