During the second quarter (July to September) of FY21, Power Grid Corporation of India added three substations to its collection of remotely-managed substations under NTAMC/RTAMC, taking the total tally to 238, as of September 30, 2020.
According to information compiled by T&D India based on annual reports and investor presentations of PGCIL, in the first quarter (1 April to 30 June) of current fiscal year FY21, only one substation was added to the NTAMC (National Transmission Asset Management Centre)/RTAMC (Regional Transmission Asset Management Centres) architecture. In the second quarter (July to September), this number rose to three, taking the total achievement in the first half (1 April to 30 September) to four.
In FY20, a total of 24 substations were integrated for remote monitoring, whereas in FY19, the performance was even better with 38 substations so integrated. (See table compiled by T&D India)
As of September 30, 2020, as per estimates made by T&D India, only 14 substations remain to be integrated for remote monitoring under NTAMC/RTAMC.
Located at Manesar in Haryana, NTAMC was dedicated to the nation on April 29, 2015. It was set up for remote operation of the system and monitoring of various parameters at the national level. Similarly, Regional Transmission Asset Management Centres (RTAMCs) were put up for similar function at the regional level. As of March 31, 2020, PGCIL had eleven RTAMCs, the latest being set up during FY20 at Bhubaneswar in Odisha.
NTAMC and the various RTAMCs are manned 24×7 by experts, providing real-time and continuous monitoring of PGCIL’s assets and systems. It is learnt that PGCIL has successfully developed software tool completely in-house for centralized real time monitoring of transformers and reactors by integrating the sensors installed in the transformers and reactors for Dissolved Gas Analysis (DGA).
Online monitoring of transformers/reactors is aimed at detecting early stages of faults initiation and hence reducing sudden catastrophic failures of the same. The software tool is operational at NTAMC and all the RTAMCs.
The need for setting up a remote monitoring mechanism for substations arose from the simple fact that it would have been economically unviable to monitor substations on site. The number of substations of PGCIL nearly doubled during the period from 2005 (100 substations) to 2012 (192 substations).
As of September 30, 2020, PGCIL had 252 substations with an aggregate transformation capacity in excess of 419,800 MVA. The transmission company also had over 1,275 transmission lines with an aggregate length of 168,140 ckm. As of said date, the interregional transmission capacity of PGCIL was 88,590 mw, standing for 85 per cent of India’s total. The remaining 15 per cent is attributed to private sector players.
(Featured photograph showing inside view of PGCIL’s NTAMC at Manesar, Haryana, has been sourced from www.deltadisplays.com)
