Two severe
power blackout
A power outage (also called a powercut, a power out, a power failure, a power blackout, a power loss, or a blackout) is the loss of the electrical power network supply to an end user.
There are many causes of power failures in an electricity ...
s affected most of
northern and
eastern India
East India is a region of India consisting of the Indian states of Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha
and West Bengal and also the union territory of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The region roughly corresponds to the historical region of Magadha fr ...
on 30 and 31 July 2012. The 30 July 2012 blackout affected over 400 million people and was briefly the largest power outage in history by number of people affected, beating the January 2001 blackout in
Northern India
North India is a loosely defined region consisting of the northern part of India. The dominant geographical features of North India are the Indo-Gangetic Plain and the Himalayas, which demarcate the region from the Tibetan Plateau and Central ...
(230 million affected). The blackout on 31 July is the
largest power outage in history. The outage affected more than 620 million people, about 9% of the
world population
In demographics, the world population is the total number of humans currently living. It was estimated by the United Nations to have exceeded 8 billion in November 2022. It took over 200,000 years of human prehistory and history for the ...
, or half of
India's population
India is the second most populated country in the world with a sixth of the world's population. According to official estimates, India's population stood at 1.38 billion.
Between 1975 and 2010, the population doubled to 1.2 billio ...
, spread across 22 states in
Northern,
Eastern
Eastern may refer to:
Transportation
*China Eastern Airlines, a current Chinese airline based in Shanghai
*Eastern Air, former name of Zambia Skyways
*Eastern Air Lines, a defunct American airline that operated from 1926 to 1991
*Eastern Air Li ...
, and
Northeast India
, native_name_lang = mni
, settlement_type =
, image_skyline =
, image_alt =
, image_caption =
, motto =
, image_map = Northeast india.png
, ...
.
An estimated 32
gigawatts
The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantify the rate of energy transfer. The watt is named after James Wat ...
of generating capacity was taken offline.
Of the affected population, 320 million initially had power, while the rest lacked direct access. Electric service was restored in the affected locations between 31 July and 1 August 2012.
Background
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
is the world's third largest producer and consumer of electricity after the United States and China; however, the electrical infrastructure was unreliable in those days.
The northern
electrical grid
An electrical grid is an interconnected network for electricity delivery from producers to consumers. Electrical grids vary in size and can cover whole countries or continents. It consists of:Kaplan, S. M. (2009). Smart Grid. Electrical Power ...
had previously collapsed in 2001.
In 2012, an estimated 27% of energy generated was lost in transmission or stolen,
while peak supply fell short of demand by an average of 9%.
During that period, the nation suffered from frequent power outages that lasted as long as 10 hours
and about 25% of the population, about 300 million people, had no electricity at all.
Efforts are underway to reduce transmission and distribution losses and increase production.
Sequence of events
30 July
At 02:35
IST
Ist or IST may refer to:
Information Science and Technology
* Bachelor's or Master's degree in Information Science and Technology
* Graduate School / Faculty of Information Science and Technology, Hokkaido University, Japan
* Graduate School ...
(21:05
UTC on 29 July),
circuit breaker
A circuit breaker is an electrical safety device designed to protect an electrical circuit from damage caused by an overcurrent or short circuit. Its basic function is to interrupt current flow to protect equipment and to prevent the risk ...
s on the 400 kV
Bina-
Gwalior
Gwalior() is a major city in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh; it lies in northern part of Madhya Pradesh and is one of the Counter-magnet cities. Located south of Delhi, the capital city of India, from Agra and from Bhopal, the s ...
line tripped. As this line fed into the
Agra
Agra (, ) is a city on the banks of the Yamuna river in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, about south-east of the national capital New Delhi and 330 km west of the state capital Lucknow. With a population of roughly 1.6 million, Agra is ...
-
Bareilly
Bareilly () is a city in Bareilly district in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. It is among the largest metropolises in Western Uttar Pradesh and is the centre of the Bareilly division as well as the historical region of Rohilkhand. The city ...
transmission section, breakers at the station also tripped, and power failures cascaded through the grid. All major power stations were shut down in the affected states, causing an estimated shortage of 32 GW.
[ Officials described the failure as "''the worst in a decade''".]
On the day of the collapse, Power Minister Sushilkumar Shinde
Sushilkumar Sambhaji Shinde (born 4 September 1941) is an Indian politician from the state of Maharashtra. He was the Minister of Home Affairs, Minister of Power in the Manmohan Singh government, and the Leader of the House in Lok Sabha until ...
stated that the exact cause of the failure was unknown, but that at the time of the failure, electricity use was "''above normal''". He speculated that some states had attempted to draw more power than permitted due to the higher consumption. Spokesperson for PowerGrid Corporation of India Limited (PGCIL) and the Northern Regional Load Dispatch Centre (NRLDC) stated that Uttar Pradesh
Uttar Pradesh (; , 'Northern Province') is a state in northern India. With over 200 million inhabitants, it is the most populated state in India as well as the most populous country subdivision in the world. It was established in 1950 ...
, Punjab
Punjab (; Punjabi: پنجاب ; ਪੰਜਾਬ ; ; also romanised as ''Panjāb'' or ''Panj-Āb'') is a geopolitical, cultural, and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the northern part of the Indian subcontinent, comprising ...
and Haryana
Haryana (; ) is an Indian state located in the northern part of the country. It was carved out of the former state of East Punjab on 1 Nov 1966 on a linguistic basis. It is ranked 21st in terms of area, with less than 1.4% () of India's land ar ...
were the states responsible for the overdraw. PGCIL's chairman also stated that electrical service was restored "at a record time".
A senior director for an Indian power company described the outage as ''"a fairly large breakdown that exposed major technical faults in India's grid system. Something went terribly wrong which caused the backup safety systems to fail."''[
More than 300 million people, about 25% of India's population, were without power. ]Railways
Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a pre ...
and some airports were shut down until 08:00. The busiest airport in South Asia, Delhi Airport
Indira Gandhi International Airport is the primary international airport serving Delhi, the capital of India, and the National Capital Region (NCR). The airport, spread over an area of , is situated in Palam, Delhi, southwest of the New De ...
, continued functioning because it switched to back-up power in 15 seconds.[ The outage caused "chaos" for Monday morning rush hour, as passenger trains were shut down and traffic signals were non-operational.][ Trains stalled for three to five hours.][ Several hospitals reported interruptions in health services,][ while others relied on back-up generators.][ Water treatment plants were shut down for several hours,][ and hundreds of thousands of people were unable to draw water from wells powered by electric pumps.]
The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM
The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India () is a Non-governmental organization, non-governmental trade association and advocacy group based in New Delhi, India. The organisation represents the interests of trade and commerce in ...
) stated that the blackout had "''severely impacted''" businesses, leaving many unable to operate. Oil refineries in Panipat
Panipat () is a historic city in Haryana, India. It is 95 km north of Delhi and 169 km south of Chandigarh on List of National Highways in India, NH-1. The three major battles fought in First Battle of Panipat, 1526, Second Battle of ...
, Mathura
Mathura () is a city and the administrative headquarters of Mathura district in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. It is located approximately north of Agra, and south-east of Delhi; about from the town of Vrindavan, and from Govardhan. ...
and Bathinda
Bathinda is a city and municipal corporation in Punjab, India. The city is the administrative headquarters of Bathinda District. It is located in northwestern India in the Malwa Region, west of the capital city of Chandigarh and is the fifth l ...
continued operating because they have their own captive power stations within the refineries and do not depend on the grid.[
It took 15 hours to restore 80% of service.][
]
31 July
The system failed again at 13:02 IST (07:32 UTC), due to a relay
A relay
Electromechanical relay schematic showing a control coil, four pairs of normally open and one pair of normally closed contacts
An automotive-style miniature relay with the dust cover taken off
A relay is an electrically operated switch ...
problem near the Taj Mahal
The Taj Mahal (; ) is an Islamic ivory-white marble mausoleum on the right bank of the river Yamuna in the Indian city of Agra. It was commissioned in 1631 by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan () to house the tomb of his favourite wife, Mu ...
. As a result, power stations across the affected parts of India again went offline. NTPC Ltd. stopped 38% of its generation capacity. Over 60 crore
A crore (; abbreviated cr) denotes ten million (10,000,000 or 107 in scientific notation) and is equal to 100 lakh in the Indian numbering system. It is written as 1,00,00,000 with the local 2,2,3 style of digit group separators (one lakh is e ...
(600 million) people (nearly half of India's population), in 22 out of 28 states in India, were without power.
More than 300 intercity passenger trains
In rail transport, a train (from Old French , from Latin , "to pull, to draw") is a series of connected vehicles that run along a railway track and transport people or freight. Trains are typically pulled or pushed by locomotives (often know ...
and commuter lines were shut down as a result of the power outage. The worst affected zones in the wake of the power grid's collapse were Northern, North Central, East Central, and East Coast
East Coast may refer to:
Entertainment
* East Coast hip hop, a subgenre of hip hop
* East Coast (ASAP Ferg song), "East Coast" (ASAP Ferg song), 2017
* East Coast (Saves the Day song), "East Coast" (Saves the Day song), 2004
* East Coast FM, a ra ...
railway zones, with parts of Eastern
Eastern may refer to:
Transportation
*China Eastern Airlines, a current Chinese airline based in Shanghai
*Eastern Air, former name of Zambia Skyways
*Eastern Air Lines, a defunct American airline that operated from 1926 to 1991
*Eastern Air Li ...
, South Eastern and West Central railway zones. The Delhi Metro
The Delhi Metro is a mass rapid transit (MRT) system serving Delhi and its satellite cities of Ghaziabad, Faridabad, Gurgaon, Noida, Bahadurgarh and Ballabhgarh, in the National Capital Region of India. The network consists of 10 colour-cod ...
suspended service on all six lines, and had to evacuate passengers from trains that stopped mid-journey, helped by the Delhi Disaster Management Authority.
About 200 miners were trapped underground in eastern India due to lifts failing, but officials later said they had all been rescued.
The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), not normally mandated to investigate blackouts, began to do so because of the threat to basic infrastructure facilities like railways, metro rail system, lifts in multi-storey buildings, and movement of vehicular traffic.
The following states were affected by the grid failure:
* states on the northern grid: Delhi
Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, primarily its western or right bank, Delhi shares borders w ...
, Haryana
Haryana (; ) is an Indian state located in the northern part of the country. It was carved out of the former state of East Punjab on 1 Nov 1966 on a linguistic basis. It is ranked 21st in terms of area, with less than 1.4% () of India's land ar ...
, Himachal Pradesh
Himachal Pradesh (; ; "Snow-laden Mountain Province") is a state in the northern part of India. Situated in the Western Himalayas, it is one of the thirteen mountain states and is characterized by an extreme landscape featuring several peaks ...
, Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab
Punjab (; Punjabi: پنجاب ; ਪੰਜਾਬ ; ; also romanised as ''Panjāb'' or ''Panj-Āb'') is a geopolitical, cultural, and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the northern part of the Indian subcontinent, comprising ...
, Rajasthan
Rajasthan (; lit. 'Land of Kings') is a state in northern India. It covers or 10.4 per cent of India's total geographical area. It is the largest Indian state by area and the seventh largest by population. It is on India's northwestern si ...
, Uttar Pradesh
Uttar Pradesh (; , 'Northern Province') is a state in northern India. With over 200 million inhabitants, it is the most populated state in India as well as the most populous country subdivision in the world. It was established in 1950 ...
, Uttarakhand
Uttarakhand ( , or ; , ), also known as Uttaranchal ( ; the official name until 2007), is a state in the northern part of India. It is often referred to as the "Devbhumi" (literally 'Land of the Gods') due to its religious significance and ...
* states on the eastern grid: Bihar
Bihar (; ) is a state in eastern India. It is the 2nd largest state by population in 2019, 12th largest by area of , and 14th largest by GDP in 2021. Bihar borders Uttar Pradesh to its west, Nepal to the north, the northern part of West Be ...
, Jharkhand
Jharkhand (; ; ) is a state in eastern India. The state shares its border with the states of West Bengal to the east, Chhattisgarh to the west, Uttar Pradesh to the northwest, Bihar to the north and Odisha to the south. It has an area of . It ...
, Odisha
Odisha (English: , ), formerly Orissa ( the official name until 2011), is an Indian state located in Eastern India. It is the 8th largest state by area, and the 11th largest by population. The state has the third largest population of ...
, West Bengal
West Bengal (, Bengali: ''Poshchim Bongo'', , abbr. WB) is a state in the eastern portion of India. It is situated along the Bay of Bengal, along with a population of over 91 million inhabitants within an area of . West Bengal is the fourt ...
, Sikkim
Sikkim (; ) is a state in Northeastern India. It borders the Tibet Autonomous Region of China in the north and northeast, Bhutan in the east, Province No. 1 of Nepal in the west and West Bengal in the south. Sikkim is also close to the Siligur ...
* states on the northeast grid: Arunachal Pradesh
Arunachal Pradesh (, ) is a state in Northeastern India. It was formed from the erstwhile North-East Frontier Agency (NEFA) region, and became a state on 20 February 1987. It borders the states of Assam and Nagaland to the south. It shares int ...
, Assam
Assam (; ) is a state in northeastern India, south of the eastern Himalayas along the Brahmaputra and Barak River valleys. Assam covers an area of . The state is bordered by Bhutan and Arunachal Pradesh to the north; Nagaland and Manipur ...
, Manipur
Manipur () ( mni, Kangleipak) is a state in Northeast India, with the city of Imphal as its capital. It is bounded by the Indian states of Nagaland to the north, Mizoram to the south and Assam to the west. It also borders two regions of Myanm ...
, Meghalaya
Meghalaya (, or , meaning "abode of clouds"; from Sanskrit , "cloud" + , "abode") is a states and union territories of India, state in northeastern India. Meghalaya was formed on 21 January 1972 by carving out two districts from the state of As ...
, Mizoram
Mizoram () is a state in Northeast India, with Aizawl as its seat of government and capital city. The name of the state is derived from "Mizo people, Mizo", the endonym, self-described name of the native inhabitants, and "Ram", which in the Mizo ...
, Nagaland
Nagaland () is a landlocked state in the northeastern region of India. It is bordered by the Indian states of Arunachal Pradesh to the north, Assam to the west, Manipur to the south and the Sagaing Region of Myanmar to the east. Its capital cit ...
, Tripura
Tripura (, Bengali: ) is a state in Northeast India. The third-smallest state in the country, it covers ; and the seventh-least populous state with a population of 36.71 lakh ( 3.67 million). It is bordered by Assam and Mizoram to the east a ...
The following regions were not directly affected by the power outage:
* Narora
Narora is a town located on the banks of river Gangas, in tehsil Dibai, district Bulandshahr, Uttar Pradesh, India. It is popular for being the site of Nuclear Power Corporation.
Demographics
India census
A census is the procedure of system ...
, Renukoot
Renukoot is a city and a nagar panchayat in Sonbhadra district in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. Renukoot is 68 km south from the district headquarters Robertsgan
Renukoot is an industrial town. It is well known for the Hindalco alumi ...
and Simbhaoli in Uttar Pradesh
* parts of Delhi such as Badarpur
* areas served by Sterlite and Ib Thermal Power Station (most of western Odisha
Odisha (English: , ), formerly Orissa ( the official name until 2011), is an Indian state located in Eastern India. It is the 8th largest state by area, and the 11th largest by population. The state has the third largest population of ...
)
* most of the Kolkata
Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , the official name until 2001) is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal, on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary business, comme ...
municipal area (CESC system)
As of 2 August, Uttar Pradesh
Uttar Pradesh (; , 'Northern Province') is a state in northern India. With over 200 million inhabitants, it is the most populated state in India as well as the most populous country subdivision in the world. It was established in 1950 ...
was being supplied about 7 GW power, while the demand was between 9 and 9.7 GW.
Prior disaster-proofing
Before the grid collapse, the private sector spent $29 billion to build their own independent power stations in order to provide reliable power to their factories. The five biggest consumers of electricity in India have private off-grid supplies. Indian companies have 35 GW of private off-grid generation capacity and plan to add another 33 GW to their off-grid capacity.
Reactions
On the day of the collapse, Power Minister Sushilkumar Shinde
Sushilkumar Sambhaji Shinde (born 4 September 1941) is an Indian politician from the state of Maharashtra. He was the Minister of Home Affairs, Minister of Power in the Manmohan Singh government, and the Leader of the House in Lok Sabha until ...
ordered a three-member panel to determine the reason for the failure and report on it in fifteen days. In response to criticism, he observed that India was not alone in suffering major power outages, as blackouts had also occurred in the United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
and Brazil
Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
within the previous few years.
Washington Post described the failure as adding urgency to Indian Prime Minister
The prime minister of India (IAST: ) is the head of government of the Republic of India. Executive authority is vested in the prime minister and their chosen Council of Ministers, despite the president of India being the nominal head of the ...
Dr. Manmohan Singh's plan for a US$400 billion overhaul of India's power grid. His plan calls for a further 76 gigawatts of generation by 2017, produced in part by nuclear power.
Rajiv Kumar, secretary general of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry
The Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI) is a non-governmental trade association and advocacy group based in India.
History
Established in 1927, on the advice of Mahatma Gandhi by Indian businessman G.D. Birla an ...
(FICCI) said, "''One of the major reasons for the collapse of the power grid is the major gap between demand and supply. There is an urgent need to reform the power sector and bring about infrastructural improvements to meet the new challenges of the growing economy.''"
On 1 August 2012, newly appointed Power Minister Veerappa Moily
Marpadi Veerappa Moily (born 12 January 1940) is an Indian politician belonging to the Indian National Congress from the state of Karnataka.
Moily was the former Chief Minister (and the first ethnic Tuluva CM) of the Indian state of Karnataka ...
stated, "''First thing is to stabilize the grid and it has to sustain. For that we will work out a proper strategy." He declined to blame specific states, saying, "I don't want to start with the blame game.''"
Team Anna
The Indian anti-corruption movement, popularly known as Anna Andolan, was a series of demonstrations and protests across India that began in 2011 and was intended to establish strong legislation and enforcement against perceived endemic polit ...
, the supporters of anti-corruption activist Anna Hazare
Kisan Baburao "Anna" Hazare (; born 15 June 1937) is an Indian social activist who led movements to promote rural development, increase government transparency, and investigate and punish corruption in public life. In addition to organising an ...
, charged that this grid failure was a conspiracy to suppress the indefinite fast movement started on 25 July 2012 for the Jan Lokpal Bill
The Jan Lokpal Bill, also referred to as the Citizen's Ombudsman Bill, was a bill drawn up by civil society activists in India seeking the appointment of a Jan Lokpal, an independent body to investigate corruption cases and complete the investi ...
and targeting Sharad Pawar
Sharad Govindrao Pawar (Marathi pronunciation: əɾəd̪ pəʋaːɾ born 12 December 1940) is an Indian politician. He has served as the Chief Minister of Maharashtra on four occasions. He has held the posts of Minister of Defence and Mini ...
.
Some technology sources and United States Agency for International Development
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is an independent agency of the U.S. federal government that is primarily responsible for administering civilian foreign aid and development assistance. With a budget of over $27 bi ...
(USAID) proposed that another widespread outage could be prevented by integrated network of microgrids
Distributed generation, also distributed energy, on-site generation (OSG), or district/decentralized energy, is electrical generation and storage performed by a variety of small, grid-connected or distribution system-connected devices referred to ...
and distributed generation
Distributed generation, also distributed energy, on-site generation (OSG), or district/decentralized energy, is electrical generation and storage performed by a variety of small, grid-connected or distribution system-connected devices referred to ...
connected seamlessly with the main grid via a superior smart grid
A smart grid is an electrical grid which includes a variety of operation and energy measures including:
*Advanced metering infrastructure (of which smart meters are a generic name for any utility side device even if it is more capable e.g. a f ...
technology, which includes automated fault detection
Fault detection, isolation, and recovery (FDIR) is a subfield of control engineering which concerns itself with monitoring a system, identifying when a fault has occurred, and pinpointing the type of fault and its location. Two approaches can be ...
, islanding
Islanding is the condition in which a distributed generator (DG) continues to power a location even though external electrical grid power is no longer present. Islanding can be dangerous to utility workers, who may not realize that a circuit is st ...
and self-healing
Self-healing refers to the process of recovery (generally from psychological disturbances, trauma, etc.), motivated by and directed by the patient, guided often only by instinct. Such a process encounters mixed fortunes due to its amateur nature, ...
of the network.
Investigation
The three-member investigation committee consisted of S. C. Shrivastava, A. Velayutham and A. S. Bakshi, and issued its report on 16 August 2012. It concluded that four factors were responsible for the two days of blackout:
* Weak inter-regional power transmission corridors due to multiple existing outages (both scheduled and forced);
* High loading on 400 kV Bina–Gwalior
Gwalior() is a major city in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh; it lies in northern part of Madhya Pradesh and is one of the Counter-magnet cities. Located south of Delhi, the capital city of India, from Agra and from Bhopal, the s ...
–Agra
Agra (, ) is a city on the banks of the Yamuna river in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, about south-east of the national capital New Delhi and 330 km west of the state capital Lucknow. With a population of roughly 1.6 million, Agra is ...
link;
* Inadequate response by State Load Dispatch Centers (SLDCs) to the instructions of Regional Load Dispatch Centres (RLDCs) to reduce over-drawal by the Northern Region utilities and under-drawal/excess generation by the Western Region utilities;
* Loss of 400 kV Bina–Gwalior
Gwalior() is a major city in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh; it lies in northern part of Madhya Pradesh and is one of the Counter-magnet cities. Located south of Delhi, the capital city of India, from Agra and from Bhopal, the s ...
link due to mis-operation of its protection system.
The committee also offered a number of recommendations to prevent further failures, including an audit of the protection systems.
See also
* Electricity sector in India
India is the third largest producer of electricity in the world.
During the fiscal year (FY) 2019–20, the total electricity generation in the country was 1,598 TWh, of which 1,383.5 TWh generated by utilities.
The gross electricity consum ...
* Northeast blackout of 2003
The Northeast blackout of 2003 was a widespread power outage throughout parts of the Northeastern and Midwestern United States, and most parts of the Canadian province of Ontario on Thursday, August 14, 2003, beginning just after 4:10 p.m ...
* Power Outage
A power outage (also called a powercut, a power out, a power failure, a power blackout, a power loss, or a blackout) is the loss of the electrical power network supply to an end user.
There are many causes of power failures in an electricit ...
References
External links
Official report of the enquiry committee
{{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121102122454/http://www.powermin.nic.in/pdf/GRID_ENQ_REP_16_8_12.pdf , date=2 November 2012
2012 disasters in India
2012 industrial disasters
Economic history of India (1947–present)
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
Electric power in India
July 2012 events in India
2012 in Indian economy