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As India strives to vault its teeming millions in to a new phase of growth, she must
overcome various handicaps which hold her back. Education, health, sanitation are
principal afflictions which get exacerbated by lack of connectivity, deepening digital
divide and lack of key enabler-the electricity. Electricity is but a carrier of energy as
would be dwelt upon later. It is energy poverty which is most debilitating ailment for the
nation as access to energy is one of the key enabler of development and necessary
prerequisite for minimum acceptable living standard-no matter how measured or
arrived at.
The nation hence, must address issues related to energy comprehensively. While we
attempt to bridge the energy deficit, we need to answer if our quest of energy merely
pandering to our profligate life styles-big SUVs, big televisions, always-on HVAC
systems? The answer is a resounding no, as there is, in fact, a deeper energy narrative,
having a larger social context or, so as to say a larger civilisational context, which needs
to be appreciated to enable formulation of strategies to mitigate energy
impoverishment.
It is interesting to note that no matter how we discuss the subject of energy, we are
inevitably led to the issues related to sustainable availability of electricity and
concomitant environmental impact. Electricitys evolution as the most preferred energy
carrier needs to be studied to appreciate how the electricity ecosystem (power sector)
became what it became eventually. This, in turn, is key to understand what is that pain
point which smart electricity infrastructure (or commonly referred to as Smart Grids)
seek to address.
This article seeks to address the issues involved and spans over following parts:
Part I

: The Energy Narrative-Why there is more than what meets the eye.

Part II A

: Global Energy Picture

Part II B

: India: Energy Scenario-Today & in 2030

Part III

: Changing Ecosystem of Electricity: Compelling Need of Smartness

Part I: The Narrative of the Energy Imperative

Evolution of human beings, we learn, is coterminous with his efforts to harness energy
systems and his quest of more concentrated energy forms. It commenced from the days
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when pre Homo sapiens- the Cro-Magnon began hunting in groups and took upon a
prey which was much larger than themselves- realising, higher energy potential of the
larger prey.
Domestication of animals and using them as a replacement of human labour as
evidenced when Sumerians used the plough, marked change in deployment of energy
systems. This also demanded more complex life styles as animals so deployed (to
harness them for work) also needed to be fed. As we see energy becoming an
important dimension of diplomacy today and even see wars being fought for energy,
this quest for more concentrated forms of energy continues unabated even though this
entails addition to complexity of our lives and systems created to support us. The
modern civilisation, or the mainstream life we lead, is a product of easy access to
energy, as we probe in this article. So, as we see energy requirement to double by 2035
and electricity requirement climb up by 70%, we stare at a looming crisis-already riddled
with acute energy poverty, we look at a target which is sprinting away.
The ease of access to energy and spinning a life style about it, belies the harsh reality
that having exhausted the easy options, the fuels are now made available by covert and
overt armed interventions (Middle East, Nigeria), deep and violent seas (North Sea, Gulf
of Mexico), fragile ecological areas (ANWR, Alaska), is suspected to be interfering with
geology (Fracking which is possibly a contributing factor to the increased incidence of
earthquakes).
So, is the energy crisis we look at or face in limited measure today, the first that the
humanity has faced1?
Not really-one of the earlier ones can be traced to medieval times when urbanisation
started taking roots and the metal working got mainstream. It took one ton of firewood
to smelt 10 pounds of copper and another ton to produce 20 pounds of Iron. This led to
the severe fire wood crisis forcing England to regulate cutting of forests and also fire
wood consuming industries. Severe depletion of forests which was stemmed only when
a third of European population was decimated following a plague outbreak. However, a
concomitant attempt to explore coal at higher seams (peat) began-marking first major
shift in energy systems. This transformation posed a challenge as an economy spun
about firewood could not naturally adopt to coal rich in impurities. However, here was
fuel with 5 times more energy. It was soon realised that coal at lower seams was much
superior (bituminous, anthracite) and marked the dawn of age of coal. Interplay of

End of Oil, Paul Roberts

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steam as carrier of energy, ability to smelt iron at industrial scales set stage for
mechanisation.
Thomas Edison,contrary to popular belief, was not inventor of electric light-there were
arc lights already in use. What he invented was a practical light which could have been
used comfortably inside the house. He understood that to sell his lights, he needed to
sell electricity as well-which he did. 1882 marked arrival of the age of electricity as
energy carrier of choice, when Pearl Street central generating station started. However,
this energy carrier was deemed inferior to steam, about which a whole industrial
economy was created and gas which easily competed with electricity for general
illumination. However, with adoption of reliable motors, inefficient pistons were phased
out rather quickly. This permitted grand change of energy systems-but this change was
essentially change of the energy carrier. DC motor drawn motors replaced horse
carriage in mass urban transit. ACs arrival as means to cross the mile limit, took
electricity where steam could have never gone-man at his command had an energy
carrier which could have transported energy to great distances. This marked the grand
paradigm shift. With shift from piston operated generators, to turbines and alternating
current, the age of electricity which immerse us today had arrived.
We find power sector grew bottom up-first at customer level, then at what we today
term as distribution level. With advent of ac, we had moved to large central stations and
at level where we needed large transmission systems.
If we attempt to see the broad relationships over the ages, one discerns following
relationships:

Energy-Food

Energy-Iron

Energy-Electricity

It is the last relationship which defines our times.

We devote a separate section on changing smartness coefficient of electricity.

Electricity: Respice, adspice, prospice2

Pervasiveness of electricity makes it part of the ecosystem we are in. It is difficult to
fathom that this thing which has now taken status of civilized lifes prerequisitesomething which is not just an important enabler of our way of life, but its essential
2

Examine the past, present and future

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ingredient as well, is an artificial construct barely 130 years old. Created in its present
form by the swashbuckling buccaneering efforts of entrepreneur-inventors [borrowing
the phrase from Philip Shewes-The Grid], the art, science and engineering of electricity
created biggest business empires known to man apart from ushering the fastest ever
socio-political changes in the recorded history. The first bloody battle over standards
and for patents happened in the battle of currents and in the business of electricity. VHS
vs Betamax was a low key replay of the battle between AC and DC. Whereas, the
strategy of todays smartphone manufacturers to protect their turf is yet to graduate to
the ruthlessness with which Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse clashed to
defend their province-that it literally drew blood is borne by the fact that the Electric
Chair as an alternative to hanging was a product of this vicious battle.
Electricity as a form of energy eased the burden off the back of humanity. A man works
typically at 75 Watts, can at his command now, defy gravity- making cities grow
vertically, can travel at speeds-dreams of which were an impossibility barely a century
ago, blow up mountains which were natural barriers till yesterday, split not just ore but
also atoms, play with substances which die in a millionth of a second of their creation,
can entertain and conduct himself in ways which has set in accelerated redefinition of
the social norms.
If domestication of animals, homesteading, agriculture give definitive pillars on which
modern civilization rests, taming of electricity and its various manifestations gave a tool
in hands of man which continue to propel him to ever higher orbits. This has made the
wars more ferocious, poverty and wealth more salient, led to the great population boom
of human beings, humbled diseases, made the pace of discovery and invention
scorching-in a nut-shell the metamorphosis of the societal norms and mores is not
happening insidiously-we can for ourselves see changes in span of years what hitherto
took decades and is now subject of intense studies. Pace of change is now seen faster
than its assimilation, causing not just stresses in communities and societies, but is also
stressing geo-political fault lines. If electricity has been liberating and pervasive, its
absence is now considered even more daunting challenge to counter. Which ever way, it
gets generated or delivered, its access is now a settled precondition for getting a
connect with the world at large. Nation state can leave communities off the grid but
needs them to be connected through sinews of communication technology-something
which is electricity on silicon, not in metallic wires and hence intrinsically electric. If farflung tribal societies excited the anthropologists as the enclaves cut off from the main
stream due to geographical divides, digital divide has now replaced geographical
divide to understand how societies are cut off from the mainstream.
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Business of making, selling and buying electricity now sees new paradigms.
Foundations on which the electricity sector stands were laid a hundred year ago. Each of
these foundations-those in brick and mortar, those in the equations of load flow and
those in the rules of the business are now being changed-changed because the way we
generate electricity has evolved, the way we sell and can sell electricity, manage
demand has undergone a shift which is nothing but tectonic.
So, when something as profound as electricity which liberates man from the
dependence on a primary source of energy, placing him in a different world than what
he inherited a century ago, makes Homo sapiens a super species, undergoes a change,
it is hard to ignore, or can we even dare think so?
This shift is seen in its creation (generation), its transportation (transmission), its
dispensation (distribution) to the consumer and its final consumption. Paradigm of each
stage, economics of each step is fast changing. In no less measure is the pressure of
environmental change brought forth by electrification of human societies. Abject
dependence on electricity confronts an occasional Fukushima making us pause on the
fait accompli we stare at. 40% of all energy usage by man on this planet goes in to
creation of electricity, a figure that would increase in times to come. This brings forth
classic hackneyed cliche-increasing electrification-which in itself is inexorable, of human
endeavors is both a boon and a bane. Bane in immediate terms and a boon, if we
survive the immediate. I would touch upon the options of primary source and the
dilemma we face in a later post.
Electricity as a form of energy is amenable to be created from a variety of sources, can
be transported with great ease, can be divided and apportioned without an
inconvenience and be put to use in variety of ways-light, heat, motion and electronic
manipulation-the last being not just possible without electricity-and one which makes
this era to be referred as anthropocene-the era of man on the geological chronology.
Electricity as a form of energy is thus peerless and measure of its use, its absence and
access to electricity now is a valuable touchstone of a peoples state and stage of
advancement in the frame of reference of modern civilisation, broadly understood as
one which grants equal access to opportunities and one that is just.
When we are in process of remodelling our house, it is in order to question and hence
understand all that we seek to change and to appreciate the whys of that, which exists
and sought to be changed. This enquiry would take us through a very thrilling and
riveting course.

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These are times of smartness- a term which is so overused and abused, that it has
ceased to excite. When we talk of smartness, as in smart grids, we need to first
appreciate the dumbness of the present power system. Power sector has in its short
history borne weight of heavy regulation world over since its adoption, seen as natural
heavy weight monopolies, which disincentivised innovation and the study of heavy
currents lost out to more glamorous subjects like electronics, communications and
computing by late 1960s-of course there were other concomitant developments several
decades ago which also facilitated this shift. A generation matured (to which the author
belongs) taking electrical engineering as a field where the best textbooks were already
a generation old and where the latest action was to be found in well thumbed history
books-quite a climbdown from the buccaneering days of its origin just a half century
ago. To quote a sociologist...by 1964 the future had already happened [Dickstein,
Remembering the Future: The New York Worlds Fair, 1939 to 1964, quoted from Philip
Shewes-The Grid]
Business of electricity was created by Edison in 1882 so that he could sell his practical
light bulb. However, expensive assets and physical connectivity (dig we must becoming
the motto)-could not have have sustained if the extensive asset base was utilised only
for few hours in the night. Samuel Insull recognized this fatal flaw and changed that by
backing cutting edge technology. Till him-the protagonists in the sector were innovators
and inventors.
The principal contours of business of electricity were etched by Samuel Insull. From last
decade of 19th century till great depression, he created the complete business model on
principle of natural monopolies, which largely governs the power sector world over till
date. Key to Insulls genius was to recognize the limits of reciprocating steam engines
and the scalability of steam turbines, achieving economies of scale by increasing size of
generators, demonstrating that the electricity business is a natural monopoly. The
electrical output from the utility companies (in the US) exploded from 5.9 million kWh in
1907 to 75.4 million kWh in 1927. In that same period, the real price of electricity
declined 55% (http://americanhistory.si.edu/powering/past/h1main.htm), thanks to this
business model. It was his sheer genius to recognize the need of levelling the load curve
and making the generators run more than what they previously did. Precursor to ToD
(time of the day) tariff was Insulls tariff based incentives to attract users in off peak hours
to avoid idling of assets.
The pace of theoretical innovation which began with Nikola Tesla and Stienmetz
petered with the career of Stagg whose seminal work post II World War made the grids
as we know them-practical, scalable and possible. All that was to be studied was in
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William Stevensons work which appeared in 1955 (Elements of Power System

Analysis). Voltages had climbed to 765 kV by late 1960s and 1000 MW alternator was
connected to the grid in 1965 (Big Allis of Consolidated Edison).
However, setting up of power plant by the utilities at will and at place of their choice
could no longer be taken for granted by 1960s-unleashing first set of change which
would alter the landscape of power sector forever, world over. The energy shock in
1970s and accidents in nuclear power plants further ensnared the power sector in vice
like grip of multi-faceted state regulation. Arthur Haileys Overload so poignantly
chronicled the sad state of affairs.
The germane thoughts of salvation were propounded not by an electrical engineer, but
by a physicist named Amory Lovins, who wrote not in a trade journal or in a physics
journal, but in Foreign Affairs magazine (1976): Energy Strategy: The Road not Taken?
setting stage for new thinking. He divined that in times to come centralised would give
way to decentralised (distributed), fossil fuels would give way to renewables, put the
seeds of energy conservation and set in process what can possibly be end of the grid as
we know it and fundamentally alter the power sector as we grew in and studied about in
our text books.
Crippling grid failures, led to work on stabilising ever increasing grids and to make them
reliable. A brand new toolset firmly took roots by 1990s. Concerns of reducing carbon
foot print of electricity generation and to opt for low risk sustainable generation
especially post Fukushima has unleashed a sense of urgency in bringing renewables on
the grid. From the days of Stagg, when we started writing load flows-the generation was
always balanced with consumption on instant basis. It has been possible to balance the
load flows and we have wherewithal to balance the P and Q flows for a given power
quality criteria. However, with possibilities of grid level storage which can be called in
near instantaneously, necessity to integrate intermittent generation which no longer
remains a marginal inflow to the grid, new tool set is needed and in fact is taking shapewe are in midst of historic times-what we sorely missed and hence dismissed about
electrical engineering has now arrived turbocharged with sense which would have
gripped the chroniclers of 19th century when they prognostically foresaw electricity as
the new frontier of humanity.
No wonder, study of electrical engineering is back in favour. The touchstone of
engineering maturity of a technology or a method is when the material moves from
research journals to textbooks. From being the vanilla it is now chic-William Stevensons
Elements of Power System Analysis is now in new avatar - Grainger and
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Stevensons Power System Analysis. Studies of Y-bus over Z-bus centric approach and
state estimation which now form theoretical core of modern power system analysis get
central treatment in this new edition of Stevensons Elements of Power System Analysis
which nursed a couple of generations of electrical engineers.
The technology, the theoretical toolset and economies of electricity are clearly
changing. The events which were laid and set out in late 1890s have run their logical
course. And we open ourselves to new challenges, which are profound, profound not
because of the imperative of mastering new emerging analytical tools, but because, the
future of human race now depends on setting ourselves on a new course, which would
be so vey different from all that we had.

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