A glitch in one power station drowns an entire area into darkness, but residents will soon be spared of this inconvenience.
The Bangalore Electricity Supply Company (Bescom) aims to end this problem with the installation of new software that will monitor every single feeder that transfers power from a distribution substation to the transformers.
A feeder shutdown protocol software will be pressed into service later this month to monitor the history of the feeder, which, the Bescom hopes, will come to its rescue in cases of emergency. This is because the software will indicate which one is the troubled feeder, thereby eliminating the need to exercise a power shutdown in the whole area. Instead, consumers fed by the problematic feeder alone will have to put up with power cuts. This could mean that some houses in the same area will go without power even as the others continue to have power supply.
Bescom Managing Director P. Rajendra Cholan said the software, which will be outsourced to a third party using via tender, will give the power utility greater control over the feeders. The software is also expected to be useful during times of power shutdown caused by a shortage in supply or owing to system constraints.
“If there is a forced shutdown, we can take turns with each feeder instead of having a whole area have a power cut at the same time. For example, if there is a need to cut power in the night, we can stop supply to agricultural feeders instead of the urban feeders,” Mr. Cholan said.
There are approximately 4,500 feeders in all the districts catered to by Bescom, with close to 1,800 of them in Bengaluru alone, falling under various categories such as rural, urban, agricultural, rural-mixed, urban-mixed. Information on each feeder will be fed into the system by Bescom, which will be monitored on an everyday basis.
With shortage in availability of power during summer becoming a routine affair, the feeder monitoring system may play a greater role in managing power supply.
Bescom is looking at implementing it full-time in December after a short trial run this month.
[Source:-The Hindu]