Wednesday, August 1, 2012

Dunno, Dunno

We're just the guys in charge, don't ask us;

India's new Power Minister Veerappa Moily told reporters that by Wednesday morning power had been fully restored across the country.
Moily, who took over the top power ministry position Tuesday, said an investigation had begun and he did not want to point fingers or speculate about the cause.
Other officials said the blackout might have been the result of states drawing too much power from the grid. Some analysts dismissed that explanation, saying if that was the cause, such collapses would happen all the time.
But, there are some clues;

Part of the problem is that India relies on coal for more than half its power generation and the coal supply is controlled by a state near-monopoly that is widely considered a shambles.
A recent survey showed nearly all the coal-fueled plants had less than seven days of coal stock, a critical level, and many of the country's power plants were running below capacity, according to Samiran Chakraborty, head of research at Standard Chartered, a financial services company. Government bureaucracy has made it difficult to bring more plants online.
In addition, vast amounts of power bleeds out of India's antiquated distribution system or is pirated through unauthorized wiring. Farmers, with a guarantee of free electricity that is driving many state electric boards to bankruptcy, have no incentive to conserve energy. 
Government monopoly...free electricity.  We start by thinking about those. 

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