The power failure in northern Eastern Grid of India once again put half the country to a halt. Right from the Delhi Metro’s to offices and small organizations everything stopped. People were standing outside metro stations but, the shutters were dropped and entry was prohibited. Though the power is back to normal the situation is critical till 2014. It is said that, India is building new power grids to compensate the rising demands of electricity. “Grid incident occurred at 1 pm affecting the northern, eastern and north-eastern grid. System is under restoration,” said the official website of the Eastern Grid. These three grids carry about 50,000 MW of electricity.
I think it is the rise in the number of electrical and electronic devices which has led to the increase in electricity demand over the last few years in India. Air Conditioners are cheap and affordable, nearly all houses big or small are buying AC’s despite the fact, the electricity rates are up. If people start using CFL instead of Tubelights and Coolers rather than AC atleast some power crisis will be solved. Nearly all companies in developed cities like New Delhi, Gurgaon Noida are using central AC’s or small AC’s in their offices, be it winter or summer. Hence causing huge power crisis.
These organizations should reduce the number of power sources. The building of WHO in Delhi is a good example of clean energy. They use Solar energy to harness most of their electricity needs. Today more than 20 states were effected due to the power crisis. It is being said that UP has over drawn power. How can a state over draw power when you have the ability to restrict it to a certain limit.
The northern grid covers nine regions — Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, J&K and Chandigarh.At least six states are covered by the eastern grid. They are West Bengal, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa and Sikkim.The north-eastern grid connects Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Assam, Meghalaya, Manipur, Mizoram and Tripura.
Though power supply has coming back to normal still there is a lot of work to be done and people will still have to suffer till new power grids are installed.