This study aims to analyze the impacts on the energy and power sectors, with recommendations for addressing those impacts during COVID scenarios as well as in the future. Join the leading alliance focused on the development of advanced energy storage, green hydrogen, and e-Mobility technologies in India. Become a member of the India Energy Storage Alliance!

1. How are Indian utilities managing grid
supply-demand equation amid the
lockdown?
The outbreak of Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and the ensuing
lockdown have upended practically every industry in the economy, including
Indian utilities.
Today, utilities face the unique challenge of managing the grid supply-demand
equation in a drastically reduced demand situation as factories and major
industries remain shut. The share of commercial and industrial (C&I) power
demand is around 40 percent in India, whereas residential demand is 30
percent. Domestic and agriculture tariffs are subsidized by C&I segment

2. revenue to a large extent in India, but with C&I industries shut, there is a huge
financial burden on the utilities.
Emerging Tech Radio host Netra Walawalkar spoke with Abhishek Ranjan, VP
- System operations at BSES Rajdhani Power Ltd (BRPL), and Jitendra
Nalwaya, VP - BSES Yamuna Power Ltd (BYPL) to understand the readiness
of utilities during the lockdown and how they’re managing the financial,
operational and social challenges brought by the pandemic.
Listen to the podcast here: https://bit.ly/3ekLy0b
Interview Transcript
Q: What are the key impacts on operations at BSES Rajdhani Power Ltd
(BRPL)?
Mr Ranjan: The impact that we see is a reduction in peak demand and input
energy consumption that is resulting in backing down or reserve shut down of
the thermal station and that has resulted in record coal stock at the thermal
power stations. Power exchange prices are very competitive these days, in
fact, not only today but since last September and every Discom including ours
is trying to make the most of it, optimizing the power purchase portfolio and
power purchase cost without compromising on grid security or reliability of the
power.
This incident has provided is an opportunity to optimize the power purchase
cost and pass on the benefits to the end consumer, but the fieldwork has been
impacted. Initially, it was affected briefly but due to the quick response of the
central and state government, it was resumed quickly as electricity was
covered under essential services.
On the consumer side, it has resulted in the reduction of the billing and
collection for the Discoms and since social distancing has to be maintained
there is a lack of physical meter reading for many of the consumers,
especially small consumers so we’re now issuing the provisional bills which
can be paid digitally.

3. The C&I segment has been hit due to lockdown therefore they have been
making requests for a moratorium on the bill payment or deduction which the
government has been considering. There is an impact on the cash flows of
Discoms and therefore some of the Discoms including UP have served Force
Majeure notices to the generators for suspending the payments, especially for
fixed charges.
So, one of the areas could be for example the fixed cost or the fixed charges
are billed for the bar DC not for full DC. For instance, the plants which are not
generating will not charge the entire available fault current (AFC) and may
charge just the bare minimum cost which is being incurred by them to keep
them running which can be done if AFCs five components can be looked it so
this will help the entire supply chain without breaking down anything. As we
know the entire supply chain is integrated and any one stakeholder getting
weak, makes the entire supply chain weak.
Q: Had it not been for COVID-19, BRPL could have seen a peak demand
of around 3.3GW this summer but instead it is observing a 24 percent
drop in peak demand as well as a reduction in overall daily consumption
the residential demand is expected to increase in summers. Can you
share your business continuity plans and learnings from the incident?
Mr Ranjan: What we are trying to do is have a business continuity plan and
this experience has helped us to find an opportunity to look for new ways to
provide sustainable service deliveries to our consumers. One opportunity is
the usage of technology in the virtual workplace. Many of them [in the
workforce] are working from home and technology is a big enabler and our
SCADA control center, though we have staff in the shift we can view entire
loading, and load patterns live and technology shall enable operations also
remotely one day. The backup control centers have been mobilized and they
are in place if so in case there is any kind of emergency then they can quickly
take over. There are redundant teams working in shifts, essential manpower in
the field of operation 24x7 wherein they can take over in case of unforeseen
events, and to ensure continuity of the service.
Personal protective equipment is a must for the frontline staff just like they are
for doctors, the cleaner, and emergency essential staff just in case they end

4. up going into an infected area they are protected to ensure flawlessly and
continuity of operations.
E-spares and transport, thanks to our e-mobility platforms and e-cars are used
for such kinds of operations in a sustainable way so social distancing without
impacting consumers. So, what we are saying is an opportunity to look at new
ways of sustainable service delivery.
The positive side of the scenario is there is cleaner air and clear skies and not
much PM matter – both PM 2.5 and PM 10 -- all have shown remarkable
improvement in the city of Delhi and other states.
What has changed in the city of Delhi is the transportation and halt of
construction activities. Halt in these two activities has contributed a lot to the
pollution reduction and now we need to think about how we can green our
transportation and mobility in a quick way. So, this situation, it is hoped could
give an insight for the policymakers to take some decisions to enforce cleaner
mobility and cleaner construction activities.
Q: What are your thoughts on the concept of digital utilities?
Mr Ranjan: Now is the time for utilities in India to learn that digital utilities are
not a mere nice to have concept but are essential if we are to maintain 24x7,
365 days operations be it in COVID-19 or any other disaster-like conditions.
So, the digital utility concept is now going to gain a lot of currency and we
expect it to get a lot of support from the stakeholders including the regulators
and the government.
Jitendra Nalwaya –VP, BSES Yamuna Power Ltd (BYPL)
When we talk of maintaining a 24x7 power supply we have to deploy a
minimum workforce because some workforce is kept in reserve. At BYPL, as
of now, we are working with 33 percent of the total workforce.
Again, the movement of the workforce is highly restricted by the government
and we have to give them ID cards and letters from authorities. Apart from
that, the motivation level of the workforce has to be taken care of as they
could have family pressures, so we have to conduct training, and awareness
sessions to ensure they are not exposed on the field. Further, the Ministry of

5. Power has come up with a guideline that there will be no traffic interruption
where power supply transportation is concerned. We also have an impact on
the commercial side of operation like deferment in bill collection etc.
One other aspect is that though we were online and digital, now we have gone
deeper into the digital activities where we are talking to the consumer on
digital helplines otherwise there will be an impact on the cash flows in the
future.
As far as power scheduling and forecasting is concerned – last year we had
870MW of growth and this year it has come down to 525MW. The situation is
such that with low load criteria we are getting high voltage issues in the field, a
lot of impact on system reliability, and consumer complaints.
The other issue is the surplus of power, but we are shutting down the major
power plants to optimize the power purchase cost which we were also doing
previously.
Q: In the current times, power supply to hospital and health care centers
have to be ensured 24x, plus with an increasing number of people
working from home and using the internet, have utilities come up with a
special initiative for this change?
Mr Nalwaya: We have identified around 140 hospitals that would be available
in the most extreme conditions when the peak (virus) will be very high so we
inspected all these hospitals and asked them if they need help to improve
their internal network. Apart from that, there are 43 hospitals that are there in
our area and we have ensured that they have one backup supply and one
main supply, and those supplies are greater than the direct supplies to them.
Further, we have created control rooms to speak with those hospitals in case
of any emergencies.
Then there are quarantine facilities which will be there in our area, those
areas are also important in terms of the power supply so for those we have
dedicated control room centers to monitor power supply.

6. Mr Ranjan: In the early days of the COVID-19 break out in India, when people
were brought in by the Government of India by sending special planes to
Wuhan, quarantine facilities were opened in West Delhi and we gave a new
electricity connection supply overnight so the challenge is not only maintaining
supply to existing facilities and there is close contact with the government,
there is a quick response team available and hierarchy as per the business
continuity plan.
The hospitals by definition have a dual source of supplies in most cases--- by
dual supply I mean redundant supply from the system level, so say, there is
Apollo hospital. It may be getting supply from two separate feeders – so if one
feeder loses power then the other feeder automatically switches over. Apart
from this, most of these hospitals maintain their backup supply but given the
situation today there is no overloading problem in a particular network so the
failure rate of the network will also be reduced anywhere we have dual supply.
Further, in critical places where the power is required especially hospitals, in
coordination with the Government of Delhi and the control room for disaster
management are being regularly monitored on a daily basis at a very
high-level call by the Discoms.
Therefore, new connections and maintenance of existing connections are
being done but if suddenly the situation goes out of hand and new quarantine
centers come up suddenly, then giving new connections and strengthening
them will become paramount. As far as Jawaharlal Nehru stadium is
concerned it is already our customer and it has a dual source of supply if the
government requires it, we can arrange for a fallback option. In that JNS can
themselves arrange for a fallback option in case of emergencies because we
don’t have portable batteries as such or we can arrange it for them.
Apart from that mobile transformers are also handy which can help in this kind
of special situation so that the outages are not there. There is a hospital in
South Delhi that has COVID patients, there was a special request that even a
flicker or changeover is not desirable, so for such kind of facilities we need to
have a UPS-like supply so changeovers are not there. So, in that sense, we
are there in terms of service delivery.

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