Power System Operation Corporation

Power System Operation Corporation Limited (POSOCO) is a wholly owned Government of India enterprise under the Ministry of Power. It was earlier a wholly owned subsidiary of Power Grid Corporation of India Limited (PGCIL). It was formed in March 2009 to handle the power management functions of PGCIL. It is responsible to ensure the integrated operation of the Grid in a reliable, efficient, and secure manner. It consists of 5 Regional Load Despatch Centres (RLDCs) and the National Load Despatch Centre (NLDC).

Power System Operation Corporation Limited
पॉवर सिस्टम ऑपरेशन कॉरपोरेशन लिमिटेड
Government – owned corporation
IndustrySystem Operation, Power Market Regulation
FoundedMarch,2009
Headquarters
New Delhi, India
Area served
India
Key people
K V S Baba
(CMD)
Websiteposoco.in

The subsidiary was eventually made a separate company in January 2017, leaving the parent firm with only the task of setting up transmission links. The load despatch functions, earlier handled by PGCIL, have since been entrusted to POSOCO.

History

Central Government through Ministry of Power in exercise of the power conferred by sub-section (3) of Sect 26 and sub-section (2) of Section 27 of the Electricity Act, 2003, by notification dt. 27 September 2010 in the Gazette of India notified that the Power System Operation Corporation Ltd (POSOCO), a wholly owned subsidiary of the Power Grid Corporation of India Limited (a Government Company) shall operate National Load Despatch Centre and the five Regional Load Despatch Centers, with effect from 1 October 2010.

The subsidiary was set up on the recommendations of a government committee headed by G.B. Pradhan, additional secretary in the Union ministry of power. To make load despatch centres financially self-reliant and autonomous, the committee recommended independent and sustainable revenue streams. The move to separate the two functions is in keeping with the provisions of the Electricity Act, 2003, which seeks to separate commercial interests from load management functions. The Pradhan committee report had recommended setting up a separate representative board structure overseeing the functions of the five regional load despatch centres (RLDCs) run by PGCIL—the northern, eastern, north-eastern, western and southern regions at that time. The subsidiary was eventually made a separate company effective from 3 January 2017.

Leadership and management

Mr. Sushil Kumar Soonee (currently mentoring as Advisor, POSOCO) was the first Chief Executive Officer of POSOCO and a special invitee in the Board meetings.

At present followings are the full-time functional directors on the board of POSOCO:-

  1. Sh. K.V.S. Baba, Chairman and Managing Director
  2. Sh. Praveen Kumar Agarwal, Director (Market Operation)
  3. Ms. Meenakshi Davar, Director (HR)
  4. Sh. Ranjan Kumar Srivastava, Director (Finance)
  5. Sh. S.R. Narasimhan, Director (System Operation)[1]

POSOCO has the following offices:

  • National Load Despatch Centre (NLDC)
  • Regional Load Despatch Centres (RLDCs)
    1. Northern Regional Load Despatch Centre (NRLDC) – New Delhi
    2. Western Regional Load Despatch Centre (WRLDC) – Mumbai
    3. Eastern Regional Load Despatch Centre (ERLDC) – Kolkata
    4. Southern Regional Load Despatch Centre (SRLDC) – Bengaluru
    5. North-Eastern Regional Load Despatch Centre (NERLDC) – Shillong

In order to facilitate the management of large scale renewable (mainly wind and solar) integration in the grid including respective generation-scheduling and generation-forecasting, four Renewable Energy Management Centres (REMCs) are under development: Northern Regional-REMC (co-located with NRLDC), Western Regional-REMC (co-located with WRLDC), Southern Regional-REMC (co-located with SRLDC) and National-REMC (co-located in NLDC premises).

National Load Despatch Centre

On 25 February 2009 the National Load Despatch Centre (NLDC) was inaugurated by Sushilkumar Shinde (Former Union Minister of Power) and Shiela Dixit (Former Chief Minister, NCT of Delhi). National Load Despatch Centre (NLDC) has been constituted as per Ministry of Power (MOP) notification, New Delhi dated 2 March 2005 and is the apex body to ensure integrated operation of the national power system.

Regional Load Despatch Centers (RLDCs) and the state transmission systems under them

The five RLDCs oversee the interstate transmission for the following states:

Each RLDC maintains their own dedicated website where scheduling and despatch of power within their respective control areas are handled round the clock.

POWERGRID transmission network failure

The Northern Region Grid, which provides power to nine states in northern India including Delhi, experienced a widespread outage due to a grid disturbance that occurred at about 2.35 a.m on 30 July 2012.

Restoration work started immediately under the direction of CEO, POSOCO and POWERGRID's chairman & managing director. A team of engineers tried to find out a way for restoring the normal supply of power immediately, so that railways, Metro, airports and other power users deemed essential could get immediate restoration of electricity. With the coordinated efforts of the whole team of engineers and constituent state utilities, power supply to the essential services and other essential loads in northern India was restored by about 8.00 a.m. and about 60% of load of the Northern Region was restored by 11:00 am. This was possible by gearing up the power supply from hydroelectric sources and also extending power from the Eastern and Western regions for start-up supply for thermal generating units of the Northern Region. Thus the associated problems for want of power supply could be partially overcome by this time. Later, power supply was restored progressively and by 12:30 p.m. power was extended to most of the cities and towns through POWERGRID sub-stations. The Northern Grid was brought back to normalcy to meet the demand of about 30 GW at 7:00 p.m.

On 31 July 2012, the northern grid collapsed for a second time, hours after the power supply was restored in the entire northern region following a disruption on the previous day. The eastern transmission lines also failed, disrupting power supply in Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, West Bengal, Assam and Punjab, among other states.[2] s

Power Minister Veerappa Moily said that transmission grids will be independently audited in three months to ensure that the grids are fail-safe.[3]

References
  1. "Baba to be first CMD of POSOCO". Indian Mandarins is Exclusive News, Views and Analysis News portal on Indian bureaucracy, governance, PSUs and Corporate. 25 May 2017. Retrieved 16 June 2017.
  2. "Powerless again: Northern, eastern grids fail". 31 July 2012.
  3. "'Independent audit of grids in 3 months'". 7 August 2012.
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