NDPL receives $0.6 million grant from USTDA for smart grid project

US Trade and Development Agency today announced that NDPL is choosen for $686,447 grant for implentation of Smart Grid technology project in its distribution network of North & West Delhi. The agreement was signed between USTDA and NDPL at US - India Business Council(USIBC) organized  roundtable in New Delhi. Sunil Wadha, MD of NDPL welcomed the USTDA association in this regard. NDPL is one of the pioneer in Smart Grid technology implementation in India.

North Delhi Power Ltd, which is jointly owned by New Delhi government and Tata Power, has partnered with GE for various smart grid solutions. Smart Grid technologies are going to enhance efficiency and reliability of energy distribution, additionally consumer will have ability to manage their energy usage. NDPL expects the technology will help them reduce power outages and thus increase reliability. The company has taken many initiatives in this regard that will reduce network losses and has pioneered substation and distribution automation in India. It is working on many smart grid initiatives, including deployment of smart metering infrastructure that will automated meter reading and help manage metering services using two-way communication with consumers.

Smart Grid Players in India

India has just begun working on Smart Grid. Transforming the old archaic and one of the weakest electric grid in the world is lot more challenging, complicated, arduous task. Nevertheless, India has started working on it. As mentioned by Alex Yu Zheng in its article Smart Grid for India, government is taking steps.

"Recent grid developments

The Indian National Government, in cooperation with the State Energy Board, put forward a road to improvement when it announced the new Electricity Act of 2003, aimed at reforming electricity laws and bringing back foreign investment. The act had several important measures

1. Unbundling the State Electricity Board’s assets into separate entities for generation, transmission, and distribution, with the intention of eventual privatization 
   
2. Adding capacity in support of a projected energy use growth rate of  12%, coinciding with a GDP growth rate  of roughly 8% 
3. Improving metering efficiency 
4. Auditing to create transparency and accountability at the state level 
5. Improved billing and collection 
6. Mandating minimum amounts of electricity from renewables 
7. Requiring preferential tariff rates for renewable 
8. End use efficiency to reduce the cost of electricity "

The present electric grid needs dramatic improvements. The problems have been accumulated through years of neglect.
Power theft,
Low metering efficiency and bill collection
Poorly planned distribution network
Overloading of system components
Lack of reactive power and regulation services



However these problems also offer enormous opportunity for smart grid business. GE is one of the major player active in electric industry and is investing heavily in Smart Grid technologies, particularly in USA and Europe. It has started collaborating with Indian 
utilities and first among them is North Delhi Power Limited (NDPL). NDPL is a joint venture between Tata Power and Delhi Government.
With GE's PowerOn coupled with Automatic Metering Infrastructure (AMI), and another GE product SmallWorld (GIS), NDPL will be able to effectively monitor repairs and power failure.

Echelon, another smart grid technology player which develops smart metering devices has partnered with HCL Infosystem, a major IT company in India, to roll-out metering and networking infrastructue. more at zdnet.