Greentech Lead India: Government of India is keen to
develop smart grid infrastructure in the country within the next 15 years, said
Srikanth Chandrasekaran, senior regional program manager- Standards, IEEE, to
Greentech Lead.
The Government of India, in association with Smart grid
task force and India Smart Grid Forum (ISGF), has allocated 350-400 crore for eight smart grid pilot projects to be implemented by the end of 2013,
“Government is really committed, I have not seen any data
contrary to that,” he said.
India Smart Grid Forum has envisioned the smart grid plan
for the year 2027 in line with the country’s Five Year Plan. By the end of the
14th Five-Year Plan, India should have a mature smartgrid network in place,
according to the ISGF.
The government is pursuing the opportunities in smart
grid by promoting R&D efforts across the country, Chandrasekaran said.
With India actively focusing on solar
and other renewable energy sources, the smart grid will provide the best
scenario to address the current energy crisis in the country.
The microgrid, once developed, will help address the
energy issues affecting the rural and remote areas. The microgrid allows a
community or group to produce, transmit, consume and manage power in a local
scale.
However, in order to fully develop the smart grid into a
viable technology, a large number of interoperability standards need to be
developed and implemented. IEEE is involved in the development of these
standards.
“Our work is to develop standards in cooperation with
volunteers and corporations. We have very big focus on smart grid in both
global and local landscape. We work for several Asian countries as well as
other markets, supporting the entire lifecycle of the standards,”
Chandrasekaran said.
However, in India there is a lot of lot of gap in
smartgrid standards development compared to other regions. This is because
Indian engineers are not actively involved in standards development.
“India has a lot of engineers, but the number of people
contributing to standard development is limited. We use standards, but we don’t
develop standards. Until recently, we were essentially service industry. We
implemented things, and did not focus on R&D. Entrepreneurship was
lacking. However, today there is a shift in both domains. India is seeing a lot
of R&D efforts from both Indian companies and multinationals.”
“In order to survive in global market, Indian companies
need to work on standards,” Chandrashekhar said. “If you are selling a product,
you should ensure it meets global standards, and it works not only in India,
but everywhere else.”
“IEEE contributes to standards development by
collaborating with working groups and volunteer organizations. We talk to engineers
about standards and make them understand how these standards are important for
the development of products and services,” Chandrashekhar said. “It’s important
for every country to participate in the standards development because every
country has specific needs, and the products developed should support the needs
of individual countries. In India, for example, power parameters are different,
quality and power ratio is different. If India is not participating in
standards development, they will lose.”
The best way to address issues in standardization is to
participate when it is being developed, according to Chandrashekhar. IEEE is
pushing right technology by providing organizations a platform to develop
that. “Organizations should realize that if they become part of a
standard development, they can improve revenue.”
The main challenge in developing smart grid standards in
India is “to make organizations participate to capture Indian requirements.”
Standards need a use case. For example, in the case of
electric vehicles, developing a standard won’t make much sense unless we
identify a user case. In Europe, the electric vehicle may be a reality in the
next 2-3 years, but in India, it won’t. Unless you address the power and
connectivity issues, EV implementation will not happen in India. India EV
deployment will evolve in different phases.
Standards will arise if there is a real need, value and
business proposition. To make that happen every industry should encourage its
engineers come forward and be part of the standards development,
Chandrasekaran said.
Rajani Baburajan
editor@greentechlead.com