Delhi Slashed Electricity Losses from 50% to 5%
Delhi Cut Electricity Loss from 50 to 5 Percent
In 2002, Delhi's power grid was a mess: outages were daily, losses topped 50%, and theft was rampant. Through a combination of technical upgrades, regulatory reform, and accountability, the city cut losses to 5-6% by 2026—matching France and Belgium. A professor of electrical engineering recounts how Delhi transformed its grid and what other cities can learn.
The situation became so bad that the city was losing more than half of its power through obsolete equipment and theft.
- motionlessveloc
I wonder how many HNers recall life in Delhi even 20 years ago? Cutting electricity loss is one thing, but getting rid of "load shedding" (unplanned power cuts) is the really revolutionary part. It was not uncommon for the power to go out several times a day and you had to rush to unplug expensive appliances (TV, laptop), because when the power came back it was often accompanied by a surge. My office was wired with two sets of electrical sockets, one connected to grid mains and the other connected to the UPS (for important equipment only).
- groos
The effort to reduce electricity theft has had an interesting side effect. One of the ways to prevent theft is to insulate the power lines going into neighborhoods. This also makes them safe for monkeys to use as 'roads' with the result that roving gangs of monkeys move from neighborhood to neighborhood with ease and also have access to the upper floor of apartment buildings because of the proximity of the power lines. I saw this in person a few years ago.
- thelastgallon
India has one thing going for it, sunlight all the time.
India can adopt plug-in standards, solar and batteries. I guess most people use some form of battery (UPS/Inverter) anyways, so the idea is familiar.
Rooftop is known and it can continue to grow. Next, add vertical solar. This will add ~4 hours of solar production.
Required gated communities to be self sufficient or net producers. Cover the surfaces of all high rises with vertical panels. Require these communities to have BESS and EV charging for all car parking. This adds two layers of storage. BESS instead of diesel generators. Add outlet for induction stove. No need of piped gas. I've seen villa communities where most homes are net producers, these ideas are happening, need to be standardized as regulation. Easiest thing is to create standards for the gated communities, which can be enforced.
Don't build rural transmission infrastructure. They can be offgrid, using solar and batteries. It is not worth the cost to build and maintain transmission and distribution infrastructure to millions of small villages.
Work towards regulating uber/rapido to require EV cars. These drive the most miles in cities and would do wonders.
Lots of scope for growth.
- ghoul2
The article doesn't cover this, but, a huge contrast is Torrent Power (Ahmedabad/Surat), which has consistently (over many decades, the ahmedabad power company is actually over 100 yrs old) maintained world-highest levels of electricity supply and service quality, distribution losses, billing efficient. Beating Tokyo, equaling Singapore.
Zero load shedding, on-site within 10 minutes typically in case of fault reports, ALL supply lines underground. Planned maintenance schedules communicated week+ in advance (rare, once every few years).
- gwbas1c
> The losses in Delhi weren’t caused solely by technical problems. Theft of electricity was rampant, by both the powerful and the powerless (in both senses of the word). Businesses, residential customers, and utility employees with vested interests would siphon electricity from the grid. It was easy to illegally hook into a streetlight or a distribution line running close to one’s house or factory. Utilities didn’t have the resources to identify theft or penalize offenders.
In general, once "everyone" is breaking a rule, more people break the rule too. Or to put it more bluntly; if everyone is breaking a rule, you should too.
- truekonrads
Re Estonia - it is integrated into EU wide power grid, 99% households have smart meters, reliability is 99.99% etc, all of its grid is inspected by drones. The only thing Estonian grid hasn't done is achieved sentience.
https://e-estonia.com/estonia-the-only-country-in-the-world-...
https://windeurope.org/news/power-shift-how-the-baltic-synch...
- whatever1
In Greece there is no incentive to fix power losses since the electric bill has a power losses line item.
You can steal as much as you want. The ones who pay will pay.
- zeristor
Estonia?!
Much has been made of Estonia having a high tech virtual government I’d. So many high tech start ups have come from Estonia, I’m a bit stunned that they have big electricity distribution problems.
- thumbsup-_-
I grew up in Delhi during the 90s. We used to have daily power cuts but starting around year 2000 (can't pin exact year), we started having less outages. Since around 2006, we had almost no outages throughout the year. Now, I haven't experienced a power outage in a long time in Delhi
- bob1029
I want to know what Singapore's grid operators have been up to. That seems to be the more interesting story based on the data in this article.