First of the announced eight smart grid pilot project implementation process starts

The first Smart Grid project is finally coming up in India in he union territory region of puducherry (earlier known as pondicherry). According to announcement, In the presence of Chief Minister N Rangaswamy, Department of Electricity and Power Grid of India Ltd (PGCIL) signed memorandum of understanding (MOU). The first of the announced eight smart grid pilots is coming up in puducherry on experimental basis. In which, 25 crore is going to borne by Power Ministry and rest of the total 77 crore is going to be borne by state government. However, in this case, PGCIL will borne the entire share of the state government, which is the main collaborator of the project.

The main features of the project will be Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) along with central data control unit. With the advance technology, the department of electricity will be able to monitor the power usage, effectively locate power theft and malpractice and ultimately curb them. Smart meters will provide the consumers capability to check their power usage and corresponding bills at any point of  the time. It is predicted that with AMI, department will be able to bring down the power losses from 22.6% to 8 %, which will be significant in terms of energy savings for power scarce country like India.