Category: Power Systems

Climate change has been posing a very critical threat to the Indian economy, and the signs of it are already evident. Some of such signs include heat stress, lowered supply of fresh water, intensive tropical cyclones, soil drying, sea-level rise, and others. 

But, this alarming situation created due to global warming across India is also giving rise to the ultimate scope of scaling the economies. And that’s possible with the rise of new industries and technologies for decarbonising, developing, deploying, and manufacturing at an optimal scale. 

In this article, you will get a clear insight into the state-devel electricity grid decarbonisation initiatives for all of India. So, read along till the end! 

What are the Policy Decisions and Implementations by India for Deep Decarbonization?

India is walking down the lane to achieve a low-carbon economy, and it is currently imposing three different state-level strategies for it, which include:

• Giving jobs to people in the low-carbon sectors
• Support low-carbon economic upliftments
• Reducing greenhouse gas emissions without disrupting the development aspirations

Creating jobs within the green sector is one of the most robust strategies when compared to all the other options listed here. India has put up this policy for most of the states to encourage the transition for workers from specific coal mining sectors to the energy sectors, green jobs, or lighter industries. 

With such efforts, India has significantly achieved more competitive electricity rates by the use of renewable energies and suppressing carbon emissions. With this, the idea behind supporting the low-carbon economic upliftments is achieved to some extent, but there still exists a lot of policies that must be eradicated from the state and national level to speed up the decarbonization effects. 

As per the verdicts are accountable, there are more than 150 specific national-level policies, the instructions of which are meant to encourage the emission of greenhouse gases instead of discouraging it. There is a need to make strict changes to the policies if the carbon emission rate is meant to be suppressed at a rapid rate in India. 

Implications Done to the Existing Policies

India’s specific efforts towards electricity grid decarbonisation can be achieved in several ways. But, there is a need for certain changes within the existing policies. India is in need of implementing a proper sequence of diverse climate policies to bring the economy back on track, which would help the nation achieve the following:

• Robust growth of the economy
• Creation of jobs
• Emission reductions at a high rate

Upon implementation of the required changes to the climate policies of India, the emissions will be controlled, starting from the state level. Over time, it is predicted that India will create around 10s of millions of employment opportunities alongside improving economic growth. The greenhouse gas emissions will be reduced by at least 2/3rd before mid-century or 2050 only if the right policies are put to use. 

How is India Planning to Decarbonize the Electricity Grids at the State-Level?

Implementing the state-level policies for decarbonising the electricity grids does come with a lot of challenges, mostly due to the state-wise authority limitations. The states must coordinate with the overlapping authority of diverse institutions and agencies. 

New policies are being introduced in order to overlap the prior ones and then curate new strategies in order to decarbonize the electricity grids on priority. The strategies include:

• Retire the Coal Plants

The providers are asked to pursue the well-managed retirement of the coal plants and then make necessary investments in distribution and transmission infrastructure to help scale the demand response. Double the storage capacity as per BAU (Business-As-Usual) projections, which is 450 GW by the end of 2050. 

With such efforts, the electricity grids of India will then be more flexible as well as ready to be powered with renewable energy for supplying power in the future. 

• Generate Carbon-Free Electricity

You must emphasize on implementing a carbon-free electricity standard for achieving 90% of the electricity through the non-fossil-fuel sources by 2050. It is a target that’s 20% higher than that of the current trajectory set at 70% use of renewables under BAU. 

• Subsidise the Costlier Technologies

The next big strategy is to subsidise the costlier technologies that are being introduced in the market to support you with decarbonization. Now, reduce the subsidies as the technologies you buy become competitive in terms of cost in the long run. 

Conclusion

So, this is a clear understanding of how India and its states are taking initiatives to improve their policies and speed up the decarbonization efforts for the electric grids. Following that, the nation is also taking steps towards revamping the transport sector, industry sector, and others to bring in a complete revolution in achieving the specified decarbonization target by 2050. 

All modern infrastructure, private households, industry, and other facilities of the 21st century demand the use of immense electrical energy. And this rising demand for complex power transmission is attended by high-voltage substations. They play a major role in meeting this demand reliably and safely. 

An electrical substation is destined to be installed in order to set up appropriate levels of voltage for the production, conversion, regulation, and distribution of electricity. When they are adopted to execute high-voltage applications, they take charge of assisting the world in attaining impeccable benefits. 

In this post, you will get a deep insight into the importance of high-voltage substations in the modern world. 

How do the Substations Work?

A high-voltage substation or electric system infrastructure is meant to switch equipment, circuits, and generators in/out of the system. It is also required for changing the Alternating Current voltages from one specified level to another and changing the AC to DC or vice versa. 

The major role of the substations is to convert electricity into diverse voltages. It is essential to make sure that the electricity can be potentially transmitted all across the country, specifically into buildings, businesses, and homes. 

The substations, technically the high-voltage utility hubs, consist of specialist equipment that allows the electricity voltage to undergo transformation. As per the demands and supply, the voltage will either be stepped up or stepped down with the use of transformers. 

The transformers are accountable as the powerhouse for substations, as they handle the transfer of electrical energy with the use of magnetic field changes. They have wire coils, probably two or more. Thus, the difference in the count of coil wraps around the core of the transformer is what would affect the voltage change. 

Thus, this is what allows the voltage to either rise or drop, depending on the needs. The high-voltage substation transformers follow the same working approach but deal with escalated voltage on priority. Considering that, these substations can fulfil diverse purposes with the rate of voltage conversions. 

Why are high-voltage substations important?

Some of the benefits that express the importance of high-voltage substations in a more proficient manner are:

1. Reduction in the Power Loss Rate

All the power obtained from traditional sources, such as coal-fired facilities, is produced in locations that are far away from the main cities. Such power plants are constructed in areas that are highly rich in specific resources for creating the required power. But that comes up with the need for transporting this power across long distances before being utilised. 

The use of high-voltage substations for transmitting power eradicates this problem. It is because, as the voltage is high, the amount of power loss during the transmission will be reduced. You must know that wires of all sizes come with specific levels of resistance, especially aluminium or copper wires. 

Over great distances, when these wires come to use, the level of resistance multiplies exponentially, and the power loss rate increases. Therefore, setting high-voltage substations for transmitting power is one of the efficient ways to reduce the rate of losses. Scaling the voltage of electricity implies that you can reduce the current, and the equal rate of power can then be transmitted with fewer losses. 

2. Lowered Infrastructure Expenses

As you know, the size of transmission cables used in power production facilities is directly proportional to the rate of current intended to pass through them. In such cases, when the power is intended to be transmitted at escalated currents, bigger-sized wires are required. But, with the setup of high-voltage substations, the size of the cables required for transmitting will be smaller, as low currents are intended to pass through them. 

When the power is being transmitted across farther distances, somewhere around 100 or 1000 km, the cabling costs gradually increase, which adds up to the overall cost of transformers for substations. So, the required size of the cabling matters a lot when you tend to look out for ways to minimise the overall infrastructure expenses.

Setting up high-voltage substations and making use of thinner wire gauges will turn out to be more reasonable for all the infrastructure suppliers and power producers. Not only that, but the end-consumers who intend to avail themselves of affordable electricity will also find it an ideal decision. 

Conclusion

This is a clear depiction of how high-voltage substations have helped energy providers improve their supply of power and electricity to the modern world. HARTEK is one of the top service providers that can help you install 350+ HV & EHV substations to attend to your power distribution projects all across your respective country. 

Connect with us today to know more about how we blend in technology, platform, and process together to deliver you an astounding high-voltage substation. 

Driven by favorable factors like falling module prices, stable exchange rate and lower cost of capital aided by a likely cut in interest rates, the per MW cost for solar is likely to drop by 10-12% this year, but matching timely execution with optimum quality will be a challenge for developers if these factors do not come into play

Falling solar tariffs have certainly buoyed the Indian solar industry, and solar installations are expected to grow at a rapid pace this year. The recent bid of Rs 2.97/KWh for the Rewa mega project has created a new benchmark for the solar sector. With this, solar power in India has already achieved coal parity, something which not many were expecting before 2019.As the tariffs fall further, the demand for solar power will go up, giving the government all the more reason to focus more on solar energy as compared to other energy sources.

We have already crossed 10 GW in terms of cumulative installed solar capacity, and another 8-10 GW is likely to be added this year alone. To achieve the ambitious target of 100 GW by 2022, 15-20GW needs to be added every year. This brings huge opportunities together with some major challenges for solar industry players.

Most of the tenders have an execution period of 12-18 months, so the current tariffs are based on the upcoming installed cost of solar, which in turn depends on three major factors—module prices, cost of capital and exchange rate. While solar module prices are expected to drop by 20% over the next one year, an expected cut in interest rates will lessen the cost of capital. Even the exchange rate is likely to remain stable.

In this scenario, the per MW cost for solar is projected to drop by 10-12% this year. This is a welcome sign for industry players, but it may also put tremendous pressure on them if these factors do not come into play. In case the prices do not go down as expected, matching timely execution with optimum quality will be a challenge for developers.

We expect a lot more tenders for solar power, both in CAPEX and RESCO models, and an increase in demand from the industry. But this rising demand will be accompanied by a strain to reduce prices. The average size of the solar capacity offered in tenders is also increasing, thereby giving developers better bargaining power to push prices down.

Indian solar module manufacturers, especially the smaller players, are finding it hard to compete. Moving forward, it is going to be very difficult for them to reduce prices as much as their Chinese counterparts. This does not augur well for the Make in India campaign. The increase in demand tends to benefit larger module manufacturers more by enabling them to achieve economies of scale and become more competitive.

Cashing in on the fast-growing solar market, many small and medium players have forayed into this sector as developers or EPC companies in the last few years. We have seen that the small developers unable to compete due to falling tariffs are being slowly phased out by larger companies which have better access to capital.  Furthermore, a consolidation is likely to take place where small developers will either be merged with or acquired by larger companies.

When it comes to large projects, EPC companies are also likely to face a similar scenario. On the other hand, the number of small projects (1MW or less) is expected to go up as the demand from the industry picks up, giving smaller companies a chance to be more competitive. The success of smaller and medium EPC players will depend on their ability to compete on three factors—cost, time and quality.

The expectations of reduced costs are rising with falling tariffs. Other than module prices, a reduction in Balance of System (BoS) costs is also expected due to better design of inverters, MMS, foundation, etc. In the current scenario, understanding the real cost of the components and appropriate negotiations are quite challenging for small EPC players. They cannot do without strengthening their procurement and design capabilities.

Timely delivery of projects is another challenge for smaller EPC players. Issues in project management and logistics can result in delay, and developers pass on the heavy penalty to EPC players. It is a challenge for EPC players to standardise the possible equipment specifications with approved and reliable suppliers, but it will help achieve better price, delivery and service support.

Quality is an integral factor when it comes to operating solar power plants for 25 long years, efficiently, economically and reliably. EPC players are under constant pressure to reduce costs and yet deliver optimum quality. Access to skilled manpower with experience in procurement, design and project management is a huge challenge for small and medium EPC players.

With falling solar tariffs, developers will try to generate more energy so as to increase the Internal Rate of Return (IRR) and reduce the level of risk on the investment. In a highly competitive market, offering such guarantees is another huge challenge for any EPC player.

But this is a great time for the Indian consumers—industrial, institutional and residential—to install solar power plants. For industrial consumers, grid parity was achieved in most of the state’s last year and residential consumers are also likely to achieve it by next year, or even this year itself.

The levelized cost of solar electricity for an industrial consumer is now 25% less than the cost of grid power in most states. The savings from solar, combined with accelerated depreciation benefits, have reduced the payback period to less than four years. RESCO model is becoming popular with industrial consumers as they can realise more than 20% savings in their electricity bills without any investment. For residential customers, savings from solar, in addition to 30? pital subsidy, results in a payback of less than five years.

One of the drawbacks of falling tariffs for consumers is the unrealistic expectations they create about the cost of solar installations. The tariff of Rs 2.97/ KWh in Rewa is for a 250-MW project.  Such low tariffs are possible for larger projects and not the ones with a capacity of 10MW or less. Tariffs for smaller projects have come down but not in the same proportion, which customers are finding hard to fathom.

Nevertheless, we are witnessing a heightened interest from our industrial customers. We are also working on a special product specifically for residential consumers as we anticipate a spike in demand from the residential category as well.