Case Study of Blackout In India 2012 || Reason For Blackout In India in 2012 which will help you crack GATE & ESE Exams interview

1. Grid Blackouts

2. Blackouts
• A total power failure over a large area usually caused by the failure of major generating
equipment or transmission facilities.
Fault at a focal point in the grid Cascade tripping of transmission
line(s) resulting from tripping of a
heavily loaded transmission line
Cascade tripping of ICT’s due to
overloading
Inclement weather (heavy rainfall,
fog, dust storm etc.)
Equipment failure Inadequate reactive reserves leading
to voltage collapse
Protection mal-operation Inadequate safety net in the form of
under frequency, Under Voltage
Slow response of generating units Human error
Slow response of manual load
shedding during low frequency
Combination of above events

3. July 2012 India blackout
 Largest power outage in
history
 Occurred as two separate
events on 30 and 31 July
2012
 Affected over 620 million
people, half of India's
population
 Spread across 22 states
in Northern, Eastern, and
Northeast India.

4. Reasons behind July Blackout
• Weak inter-regional power
transmission corridors due to
multiple existing outages
• High Loading on 400 kV Bina-
Gwalior-Agra link.
• Inadequate response by SLDCs to
the instructions of (RLDCs) to
reduce overdraw by the Northern
Region utilities and
underdrawal/excess generation
by the Western Region utilities.
• Loss of 400 kV Bina-Gwalior link
due to mis-operation of its
protection system.

5. Angular Separation between NR and Grid

6. Preventing blackouts
Long Term plans:
 Adequate transmission
access to load centers
 Sufficient generation
 Dynamic simulation
 Distributed generation
Short Term plans:
 Implementation of
special protection
schemes
 Proper use of FACT
devices

7. Preventing blackouts summary
• Good design and operating
practices could minimize the
occurrence and impact of
widespread outages
– Reliability criteria
– Robust stability controls
– Coordinated emergency
controls
– Real-time system monitoring
and control
• Need for a single entity with
overall responsibility for security
of entire interconnected system

8. Why blackout is a disaster??
• Electric power: Essential resource of national
security
• It affects : finance,transportation,food and
water supply, health and welfare,
communications, research, heating, cooling,
lighting, computer and electronics, industries,
commercial enterprise and many more…
• Impact on grid and public life is countless…

9. Conclusion
Will there be a blackout in future???
• Engineers tend to learn from the past
• ... but systems are usually prepared to the last
(rather than future) war
• Improvements in communications and
coordination in SLDC,RLDC and generating
stations
• ... but new challenges are looking ahead