India integrates southern grid with new grid

India's national power grid is expected to be operational by January 2014.

The country is now integrating a new grid to its southern grid that will facilitate easy transmission of power across the country.

However, some caution needs to be exerted to ensure that the synchronised all India grid is reliable.

The Planning Commission has made some important recommendations in this regard and said that systems should be loaded gradually as experience is gained.

The apex commission has further said that for an initial period of six months to one year, AC ties must be primarily used to build reliability.

The experience of Turkey can be utilised in this regard, the commission noted. Turkey was synchronously connected to Continental Europe in September 2010. However, three phases of trial operation and stabilisation were conducted for almost two years up till late 2012.