Regulatory issues and
investment from public as
well as private sector may be the
major issues in the Smart Grid
sector in India. According to
Sivakumaran Govindarajan,
Director-Smart Grid Strategy,
Schneider Electric, good
policies and regulations can
really help Smart Grid to take off
in a big way in India. In an
exclusive interaction with
Electrical Monitor, he noted that
the market needs to be ready for
the technology, which will
happen with the right policies
and regulations. If regulators
promote smart grid, people are
ready to invest, he asserted.
He noted that the acceptance
level for smart grid
technologies in the market is
currently lukewarm. Among
distribution utilities, private
utilities have been quite
aggressive in implementing
smart grid technologies. Many
of them are already into this and
have used many IT applications.
However, public utilities have
not yet adopted smart grid
technology as they face a lot of
challenges including those of
training manpower.
He observed that India is in a
very strong situation when it
comes to smart grid. "We are
quite tuned to saving electricity
behavior wise. People are going
green and they want to be a part
of green initiative,"
Govindarajan said.
Today there is about 30 per
cent AT&C losses which amount
to around Rs.40,000 crore every
year and the government has
pointed bringing this down as
one of the key priority areas. The
smart grid is gaining momentum
and the power ministry is leading
the way for creating the
environment for smart grid
implementation. As a first step,
the ministry will invest money in
showcasing technology, which is
expected to come in place in the
coming few months. After this
technology is shown, it will be
easy to figure out which
technology will be best suited for
India. Requirement for India is
different from the western world
and the government as well as the
industry is trying to find a
solution suitable for India.
Talking about the technology,
he mentioned that one element of
smart grid is Advanced Metering
Infrastructure (AMI), which is
also the largest smart grid
technology deployed around the
world. Implementation of this has
resulted in energy savings of up
to 12 per cent in Western World.
The technology, along with many
others, is available in India,
though some changes may need
to be made for making it suitable
to specifications applicable in
the country.