Power System Operation Corporation

History

Central Government through Ministry of Power in exercise of the power conferred by sub-section (3) of Sect 26 and sub-section (2) of Section 27 of the Electricity Act, 2003, by notification dt. 27 September 2010 in the Gazette of India notified that the Power System Operation Corporation Ltd (POSOCO), a wholly owned subsidiary of the Power Grid Corporation of India Limited (a Government Company) shall operate National Load Despatch Centre and the five Regional Load Despatch Centers, with effect from 1 October 2010.

The subsidiary was set up on the recommendations of a government committee headed by G.B. Pradhan, additional secretary in the Union ministry of power. To make load despatch centres financially self-reliant and autonomous, the committee recommended independent and sustainable revenue streams. The move to separate the two functions is in keeping with the provisions of the Electricity Act, 2003, which seeks to separate commercial interests from load management functions. The Pradhan committee had recommended setting up a separate representative board structure overseeing the functions of the five regional load despatch centres (RLDCs) run by PGCIL—the northern, eastern, north-eastern, western and southern regions at that time.

The Present Board of directors are as following:

Mr. Sushil Kumar Soonee was the first Chief Executive Officer of POSOCO and a special invitee in the Board meetings.
Pursuant to his superannuation, Mr. K.V.S. Baba was appointed as CEO in December 2016.

The Corporate Centre of POSOCO is at B-9, Qutab Institutional Area, Katwaria Sarai, New Delhi-110016, INDIA

POSOCO mainly comprises –

1. National Load Despatch Centre (NLDC)
2. Five Regional Load Despatch Centres

National Load Despatch Centre

On 25 February 2009 the National Load Despatch Centre (NLDC) was inaugurated by Sh.Sushilkumar Shinde(Union Minister of Power) and Smt.Shiela Dixit(Chief Minister, Delhi). National Load Despatch Centre (NLDC) has been constituted as per Ministry of Power (MOP) notification, New Delhi dated 2 March 2005 and is the apex body to ensure integrated operation of the national power system.

The main functions assigned to NLDC are:

♦ Supervision Over the Regional Load Despatch Centres.

♦ Scheduling and dispatch of electricity over the inter-regional links in accordance with grid standards specified by the authority and grid code specified by Central Commission in co-ordination with Regional Load Despatch Centres.

♦ Coordination with Regional Load Despatch Centres for achieving maximum economy and efficiency in the operation of National Grid.
♦ Monitoring of operations and grid security of the National Grid.

♦ Supervision and control over the inter-regional links as may be required for ensuring stability of the power system under its control.

♦ Coordination with Regional Power Committees for regional outage schedule in the national perspective to ensure optimal utilisation of power resources.
♦ Coordination with Regional Load Despatch Centres for the energy accounting of inter-regional exchange of power.

♦ Coordination for restoration of synchronous operation of national grid with Regional Load Despatch Centres.

♦ Coordination for trans-national exchange of power.

♦ Providing Operational feedback for national grid planning to the Authority and Central Transmission Utility.

♦ Levy and collection of such fee and charges from the generating companies or licensees involved in the power system, as may be specified by the Central Commission.

♦ Dissemination Of information relating to operations of transmission system in accordance with directions or regulations issued by Central Government from time to time.

Regional Load Despatch Centres

The main responsibilities of RLDCs are:

♦ System parameters and security.
♦ To ensure the integrated operation of the power system grid in the respective region.
♦ System studies,planning and contingency analysis.
♦ Daily scheduling and operational planning.
♦ Facilitating bilateral and inter-regional exchanges.
♦ Computation of energy despatch and drawal values using SEMs.
♦ Augmentation of telemetry, computing and communication facilities.

POWERGRID transmission network failure

The Northern Region Grid, which provides power to nine states in northern India including Delhi, experienced a widespread outage due to a grid disturbance that occurred at about 2.35 a.m on 30 July 2012.

Restoration work started immediately under the direction of CEO, POSOCO and POWERGRID's chairman & managing director. A team of engineers tried to find out a way for restoring the normal supply of power immediately, so that railways, Metro, airports and other power users deemed essential could get immediate restoration of electricity. With the coordinated efforts of the whole team of engineers and constituent state utilities, power supply to the essential services and other essential loads in northern India was restored by about 8.00 a.m. and about 60% of load of the Northern Region was restored by 11:00 am. This was possible by gearing up the power supply from hydroelectric sources and also extending power from the Eastern and Western regions for start-up supply for thermal generating units of the Northern Region. Thus the associated problems for want of power supply could be partially overcome by this time. Later, power supply was restored progressively and by 12:30 p.m. power was extended to most of the cities and towns through POWERGRID substations. The Northern Grid was brought back to normalcy to meet the demand of about 30 GW at 7:00 p.m.

On 31 July 2012, the northern grid collapsed for a second time, hours after the power supply was restored in the entire northern region following a disruption on the previous day. The eastern transmission lines also failed, disrupting power supply in Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, West Bengal, Assam and Punjab, among other states.

Power Minister Veerappa Moily said that transmission grids will be independently audited in three months to ensure that the grids are fail-safe.