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  • Meanwhile, in India...

    India grid failure puts 370 million in the dark

    NEW DELHI - Northern India's power grid crashed Monday, halting hundreds of trains, forcing hospitals and airports to use backup generators and leaving 370 million people — more than the population of the United States and Canada combined — sweltering in the summer heat. The blackout, the worst to hit India in a decade, highlighted the nation's inability to feed a growing hunger for energy as it strives to become a regional economic power. Some small businesses were forced to shut for the day. Buildings were without water because the pumps weren't working.

    The northern grid crashed about 2:30 a.m. because it could no longer keep up with the huge demand for power in the hot summer, officials in the state of Uttar Pradesh said. However, Power Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde said he was not sure exactly what caused the collapse and had formed a committee to investigate it. (Yeah, good luck tracing those cables! /sarc)

    The grid feeds the nation's breadbasket in Punjab, the war-wracked region of Kashmir, the burgeoning capital of New Delhi, the Dalai Lama's Himalayan headquarters in Dharmsala and the world's most populous state, the poverty stricken Uttar Pradesh.
    By late morning, 60 per cent of the power had been restored in the eight northern states affected by the outage and the rest was expected to be back on line by the afternoon, Shinde said. The grid was drawing power from the neighbouring eastern and western grids as well as getting hydroelectric power from the small neighbouring mountain kingdom of Bhutan.
    Some talk about India becoming a super power, but I'm afraid their infrastructure problems (Hydro, Roads, Trains, Sewage and Water) need another 50 years to be fixed first. It is not uncommon in some small Indian cities to have only a few hours of access to power per day as the hydro companies rotate power around between cities on a schedule as they can't service them all simultaneously.

    GOOGLE IMAGE SEARCH:

    Last edited by Adeptus; July 30, 2012, 03:05 PM.
    Warning: Network Engineer talking economics!

  • #2
    Re: Meanwhile, in India...

    Originally posted by Adeptus View Post

    Some talk about India becoming a super power, but I'm afraid their infrastructure problems (Hydro, Roads, Trains, Sewage and Water) need another 50 years to be fixed first.
    See this link about a fire that killed more than 40 people in a passenger train between New Delhi and Chennai (previously Madras).
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-19051196

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    • #3
      Re: Meanwhile, in India...

      I've worked as an industrial electrician. The pictures of the transmission lines horrify me.

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      • #4
        Re: Meanwhile, in India...

        Originally posted by Adeptus View Post


        ....Some talk about India becoming a super power, but I'm afraid their infrastructure problems (Hydro, Roads, Trains, Sewage and Water) need another 50 years to be fixed first...

        Shame they can't get organized to fix things.
        They seem to have more than enough truly first-rate technical talent.
        The problem must be factors other than know-how in basic electrical power technology.
        The photos do show a need to keep the average do-it-yourself consumer from making the connections on the poles.

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        • #5
          Re: Meanwhile, in India...

          Originally posted by thriftyandboringinohio View Post
          Shame they can't get organized to fix things.
          They seem to have more than enough truly first-rate technical talent.
          The problem must be factors other than know-how in basic electrical power technology.
          The photos do show a need to keep the average do-it-yourself consumer from making the connections on the poles.
          Having lived for 20 years in a quasi-banana republic (New Mexico), I've seen first hand how nepotism, crony-ism and flat-out corruption prevent even the simplest things from getting done correctly and efficiently- if they're even done at all.

          My husband did handyman repairs in a lot of houses in NM. He would frequently come home from jobs simply appalled that they ever passed inspection, shaking his head, saying "Nothing's level, nothing's square."

          I suspect there's a similar problem in India, only magnified by 1,000.

          Be kinder than necessary because everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle.

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          • #6
            Re: Meanwhile, in India...

            They were down again today, and the numbers have now gone up to 620 MILLION without power .
            It is officially now the world's largest power outage!


            source: http://www.ctvnews.ca/world/massive-...power-1.898775
            India's power outage has now spread to more than half the country, making it one of the world's biggest ever blackouts.More than 620 million people have been affected by the outages. That’s more than the combined populations of Canada, the U.S., and Mexico.

            “Even before we could figure out the reason for yesterday's failure, we had more grid failures today," R. N. Nayak, chairman of the state-run Power Grid Corporation, told reporters. When the northern grid collapsed again Tuesday, the eastern grid went down shortly after, and the northeastern grid followed.
            Warning: Network Engineer talking economics!

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            • #7
              Re: Meanwhile, in India...

              Looking at that 'distribution system' maybe the Indians sided with DC Edison!

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              • #8
                Re: Meanwhile, in India...

                Originally posted by Adeptus View Post
                They were down again today, and the numbers have now gone up to 620 MILLION without power .
                It is officially now the world's largest power outage!


                source: http://www.ctvnews.ca/world/massive-...power-1.898775
                It's a metaphor for the global financial system :-)

                All that interconnectedness may not be such a good thing after all...

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                • #9
                  Re: Meanwhile, in India...

                  At least there are not any reports till now of rioting to take advantage of the situation. Shows some character of the "poor" people there nevertheless.

                  Lets see how many "new world" regions can survive the time period we survived as rich culture...

                  I am not supporting what is going on.. but better perspective.

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