With reforms and much needed infrastructure investments going in India Power value chain – Generation, Transmission and Distribution, the paradigm is gradually shifting from ‘Availability’ of power to ‘Quality’ of power. The rise in sensitive electronic device usage in all phases of life has further increased the demand for high power quality. The complexity and interconnectivity of our power networks has further aggravated power quality issues. It’s no more only generation or ‘supply’ side problem, but is dominantly affected by the ‘demand’ side parameters like types of electrical loads, their usage patterns and isolation from the grid. So while customers are deemed beneficiary of high PQ, at the same time, they are co-responsible for same, together with their Utility.

With PQ becoming increasingly critical, it becomes important that it starts getting measured regularly, finds place in list of KPIs for benchmarking utility performance, and start getting enforced both on Utilities and customers through right incentive/ penalty structure. While there are defined KPIs for measuring Utility supply side performance like SAIDI, SAIFI, CAIDI, AT&C losses, etc. there are no strong measures to monitor PQ. Some such measures could be measurement of harmonic distortions, TDD, voltage quality (magnitude, sag/swell), unbalance etc.

Many state distribution utilities are also saddled with high losses, theft, increasing power purchase costs, etc and thus have increased tariff considerably in last 2 years. While electricity tariff has been a key discussion point for some time, consumers now have realized that the ‘quality of power’ is also of prime importance. 

Webinar Discussion Points:

1. Impact of PQ on customers
2. Impact of PQ on Discoms
3. Incorporating PQ in SLA to regulate Discom
4. Provisions for PQ in Tariff filing and ARR petition