There are five regional electricity transmission grids in India - Northern, North Eastern, Eastern, Southern and the Western grids. They are all interconnected and act as a single national grid as of mid 2014, but administered individually by the regional load dispatch centers. Some of these interconnections, such as between western and southern grids now, are more theoretical than practical and energy transmission bottlenecks exist. In this article we intend to analyze the energy supplied by each of these grids. For the time being, we will limit the discussion to the energy and not the power (peak power or otherwise) the grids can handle.
First of all, a review of the regional coverage of each of the grids.
By population, the northern grid serves the most citizens (369 million) and the north-eastern grid serves the least (44 million). The other three grids serve approximately the same fraction of the population (272, 270 and 252 million).
Here is a plot of the energy consumption on the five regional grids over the last two years for which common granular data is available.
Looking at the plot some disparities clearly stand out. One would have expected, assuming everything else remaining the same, the energy supplied by the grids to reflect the population. But interestingly, the northern grid, despite catering to greater than 30% more people than either the southern or western grids, is not substantially bigger than either of those. The eastern grid serves approximately the same number of people as the western grid, but the energy distributed is substantially lesser. So it is clear that the northern and eastern grids are clearly under-delivering energy to the population they are expected to serve. At the same time, western and southern grids indicate the industrial activities. We have a discussion on population adjusted grid data soon, where we can have represent the north-eastern grid as well, which does not show up in the chart that well, because of the absolute energy served by the grid is smaller compared to the rest.
It is wise to note that we know that a lot more factors than total population affects per-capita electricity consumption, such as population density, prevailing weather etc., as can be seen in the per capita electricity use table for U.S.. But here we are comparing large regions, some bigger than by population than the the U.S., not individual states. So ideally the variations specific to individual states must be smoothed out in the region-wise data.
Taking into account well known facts about India's skewed development, where development and better governance is concentrated in the southern and the western states, this disparity can easily be explained. The grid data, is therefore a good hard-data proxy for the progress in the development of each of the regions. In our future articles, we will study individual states and evaluate the trends in their progress using the electricity consumption as a coincident indicator.
The following chart sums up the electricity usages for all grids.
As can be seen, the variations in the total energy demand is much smaller as a percentage compared to say, the variations in the northern grid.
References:
[1] http://censusindia.gov.in/ (2011 Population Data)
[2] http://energyalmanac.ca.gov/electricity/us_per_capita_electricity-2010.html (U.S. Per Capita Electricity Use By State)
[3] http://www.srldc.org/ ; http://wrldc.com/ ; http://nrldc.in/ ; http://www.erldc.org/ ; http://www.nerldc.org/ (Grid Utilization Data)
First of all, a review of the regional coverage of each of the grids.
| Grid | States Covered | Total Population (2011) |
|---|---|---|
| Northern | Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Chandigarh, Uttarakhand, Haryana, NCT of Delhi, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh | 368,589,914 |
| Western | Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Daman & Diu, Dadra & Nagar Haveli, Maharashtra, Goa | 272,937,848 |
| Southern | Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Puducherry, Tamil Nadu, Telangana | 252,567,336 |
| Eastern | Bihar, Sikkim, West Bengal, Jharkhand, Orissa | 270,673,657 |
| North-Eastern | Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, Tripura, Meghalaya, Assam | 44,980,294 |
| Independent | Lakshadweep, Andaman & Nicobar | 416,802 |
| Total | 1,210,165,851 |
By population, the northern grid serves the most citizens (369 million) and the north-eastern grid serves the least (44 million). The other three grids serve approximately the same fraction of the population (272, 270 and 252 million).
Here is a plot of the energy consumption on the five regional grids over the last two years for which common granular data is available.
 |
| India: All Regional Grids Energy Usage Trend (Click for a larger Version) |
Looking at the plot some disparities clearly stand out. One would have expected, assuming everything else remaining the same, the energy supplied by the grids to reflect the population. But interestingly, the northern grid, despite catering to greater than 30% more people than either the southern or western grids, is not substantially bigger than either of those. The eastern grid serves approximately the same number of people as the western grid, but the energy distributed is substantially lesser. So it is clear that the northern and eastern grids are clearly under-delivering energy to the population they are expected to serve. At the same time, western and southern grids indicate the industrial activities. We have a discussion on population adjusted grid data soon, where we can have represent the north-eastern grid as well, which does not show up in the chart that well, because of the absolute energy served by the grid is smaller compared to the rest.
It is wise to note that we know that a lot more factors than total population affects per-capita electricity consumption, such as population density, prevailing weather etc., as can be seen in the per capita electricity use table for U.S.. But here we are comparing large regions, some bigger than by population than the the U.S., not individual states. So ideally the variations specific to individual states must be smoothed out in the region-wise data.
Taking into account well known facts about India's skewed development, where development and better governance is concentrated in the southern and the western states, this disparity can easily be explained. The grid data, is therefore a good hard-data proxy for the progress in the development of each of the regions. In our future articles, we will study individual states and evaluate the trends in their progress using the electricity consumption as a coincident indicator.
Other Observations
- The northern grid seems to have a well prominent and amplified (200-300 MU, 20-30% of generation) regional variation. This is due to the summer air-conditioning demand and the agricultural demand for operating groundwater pumps for the water-intensive summer paddy crop.
- The western grid also have a seasonal variation, but not as prominent as the northern grid. This seems to coincide with the onset of monsoon, which may indicate reduction in cooling demand.
- The southern grid seems to have peaks at around March, which needs more study.
- The eastern grid is not indicating much year over year growth that the other grids are showing, indicating a stagnant consumption scenario. We wonder if we adjust for population growth, there is any growth in per capita consumption in the eastern region at all.
Benefits of a National Grid?
As we have noted above, there are prominent regional seasonal variations in the electricity consumption pattern and some of these patterns cancel each other - for example the latter part of the northern grid peak coincides with the trough of the western grid consumption. If we have a truly interconnected national grid without bottlenecks, the consumption peaks can be easily managed by managing appropriate distribution of peaking consumers to idling producers.The following chart sums up the electricity usages for all grids.
 |
| India: All Regional Grids Energy Usage Trend with Total (Click for a larger Version) |
As can be seen, the variations in the total energy demand is much smaller as a percentage compared to say, the variations in the northern grid.
References:
[1] http://censusindia.gov.in/ (2011 Population Data)
[2] http://energyalmanac.ca.gov/electricity/us_per_capita_electricity-2010.html (U.S. Per Capita Electricity Use By State)
[3] http://www.srldc.org/ ; http://wrldc.com/ ; http://nrldc.in/ ; http://www.erldc.org/ ; http://www.nerldc.org/ (Grid Utilization Data)
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