Power Grid Corporation of India Ltd (PGCIL) has planned to house its consultancy business and other non-core activities in a new subsidiary.
PGCIL has created a new wholly-owned subsidiary that will have several ongoing activities other than the company’s core power transmission business.
Addressing an investor conference recently, K. Sreekant, Chairman & Managing Director, PGCIL, said that a new wholly-owned subsidiary called “Powergrid Energy Services Ltd” has been formed for the purpose.
Several ongoing businesses of PGCIL like consultancy, solar power, energy metering, operations & maintenance (O&M) will be transferred to the new entity, the CMD said.
The consultancy business of PGCIL earned an estimated Rs.436 crore of revenue in FY23. It offers services to both domestic and international clients and currently has over 140 assignments. Domestic clients of PGCIL’s consultancy business include state government-owned power utilities, private power utilities, Central PSUs, and government departments.
The area of consultancy expertise covers power transmission, sub-transmission, and distribution, rural electrification, smart grids, load dispatch & communication, energy efficiency, etc.
Speaking of the smart metering business, K. Sreekant noted that PGCIL was in talks with the Gujarat government for implementing a smart metering project involving 67 lakh smart meters.
In the solar power generation sector, which will now be housed under the new subsidiary, PGCIL is re-inviting bids from suppliers. PGCIL had floated bids in FY23 but had to repeat the exercise in view of changes in government rules on sourcing, the CMD said. The revised bids are currently under evaluation.
Telecom business
It may be mentioned that PGCIL is already in the process of hiving off its telecom business (FY23 revenues: Rs.729 crore) into a new subsidiary “Powergrid Teleservices Ltd”. In FY23, Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC) approved the transfer of PGCIL’s telecom business to the new subsidiary. According to K. Sreekant, Powergrid Teleservices Ltd is expected to formally start its operations during the second quarter (July to September) of the current fiscal year.
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Use of AI and ML
In an independent development, K. Sreekant, CMD, PGCIL, informed that PGCIL has done in-house development of a model, based on artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), for the detection of defects in transmission lines. This detection is being done based on image processing, K. Sreekant said. Though the model is currently in the “beta” stage with 70 percent accuracy, it is expected that full-fledged application of this model would begin in the current fiscal year. Discussing another instance of technical innovation, the PGCIL CMD highlighted that PGCIL, in a first in India, used RIP (resin-impregnated paper) bushings on its 765kV line reactor at Satna in Madhya Pradesh.
The featured photograph (source: PGCIL) is for representation only.