India's electricity grid is set to become the largest in the world. As per Union Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia, India's transmission capacity during the 12th Five-Year Plan period ending FY 2016-17, is likely to go up from 28,000 MW (megawatts) to 65,000 MW, making it the largest grid in the world. The national grid is currently inter-connected with the northern, western and eastern regions. The southern grid is yet to be connected and once that is connected, India's grid, which has 28,000 megawatts of electricity supply capability, will become one of the largest synchronously connected grids of the world.
Talking about last year's grid failure which saw nearly half of the country going without electricity for hours on 2 consecutive days in July, Scindia said it happened because rules of overdrawal and underdrawal of the system were not followed, because of which one introduces greater volatility in the grid that ultimately can lead to a grid collapse.
Meanwhile explaining the checks being put in place to lower the volatility, Scindia said if there is overdrawal and if load-shedding is not done at the local level, the transmission of electricity will be shut off in that sector. If a state at its local level is not doing local load-shedding, then the load shedding will start at the regional level to ensure stability of the grid.
