Massive power blackout in India (2012)
On July 30, 2012, India was hit by the worst power blackout in its history until then, affecting 19 of the 36 states and leaving roughly half of the 1.2-billion strong population without electricity. This is certainly an over-estimate, as back then, just under 40 percent of people only ever may have had access to the grid.
According to Reuters, peak-hour demand at the time exceeded power capacity by about 10 percent, impairing economic growth.
A weak monsoon that resulted in a fall of hydroelectricity generation worsened the situation as people tried to cool down in scorching heat.
The Indian government was slow to respond to some of the pressing challenges facing its population.
This power cut could have offered the opportunity to make a change and transform India’s energy-hungry economy into one that is greener, and more resilient to outages, which are even more likely to happen in the future is nothing is done about it.
Growth in demand exceeds new capacity being added by far, even more than a decade after the event.
The fact that there are only five electricity grids makes the system prone to cascading failure.
People need to re-think the way power is generated, by opting for locally generated power using renewable sources like photovoltaics, solar-thermal power and wind. Microgrids connected to power storage solutions such as batteries would at least partly eliminate the need for expensive, environmentally-unfriendly diesel generators and kerosene, which are causing respiratory problems in the millions of people using them for lighting and cooking.
Pakistan power blackout 2015 and 2023
After terrorists destroyed a transmission tower in Baluchistan, Pakistan, nearly 80% of Pakistan’s population – or more than 140 million people – were left without power for hours. (see Bloomberg article)
Just like India in 2012, Pakistan would hugely benefit from a distributed, highly resilient grid.
But they seem to have learned nothing from it:
During the early hours of January 23, 2023, interventions by the grid operator intended to reduce energy consumption resulted in a total collapse of the grid across the nation, taking all day for power to be restored.
Apparently, providing electricity to your people is harder than building nuclear weapons.
South Africa
South Africa has had rolling blackouts (“load shedding”) since 2006, forcing people to take them into consideration when they want to do laundry, charge their phone or when students can do their homework.
Western Australia
The state of Western Australia can be thought of as an example, as they are currently in the process of abandoning their 93,000 km long electricity grid in favor of solar-powered microgrids for the sprawling farms dispersed throughout the bush, with diesel generators for backup.
Germany
Germany has separate networks for providing electricity to the railway network and the rest. The railway network mainly uses 16.7 Hz, while the rest of the country uses 50 Hz. Could the railway network help with the transformation towards renewable energy?
Latest developments as of 2022 / 2023
Germany loosens restrictions on plug-in solar power systems, allowing electricity meters to run in reverse for up to four months. However, without compensation, this further enriches the established power and grid companies.
Development in regions with sparse networks
For less developed regions such as Africa, considering various scenarios for simulation can save considerable cost before actual implementation. Numerous tools have been developed to help with such efforts, a selection of which are listed below:
https://un-modelling.github.io/electrification-paths-presentation/
https://github.com/un-modelling
https://github.com/global-electrification-platform/gep-onsset