On April 3, Prime Minister Narendra Modi made an address to the nation, during which he requested the country to dispel the darkness brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. Modi asked citizens to switch off their lights and light up candles for 9 minutes at 9 pm on April 5.
This has now triggered a debate on whether the nation's power grid will be able to handle the drop and surge in power demand, and the impact it will have on power distribution afterwards. WhatsApp messages started floating around telling people to turn off the main switch instead of just the lights, to protect the appliances from a voltage fluctuation and resultant damage.
The Power Ministry eventually had to come out with a statement to clarify that only lights are to be switched off and that the "Indian electricity grid is robust and stable and adequate arrangements and protocols are in place to handle the variation in demand".
"There is no call to switch off either street lights or appliances like Computers, TVs, Fans, Refrigerators and ACs in the homes. Only lights should be switched off. The lights in Hospitals and all other essential services like Public Utilities, Municipal Services, Offices, Police Stations, Manufacturing Facilities, etc will remain on. The call given by PM is to just switch off lights in residences," the Ministry said.
Apprehensions regarding grid instability and voltage fluctuation was also brought up by Maharashtra's Energy Minister Nitin Raut, who - in a video - requested people to not switch off the lights at the same time to avoid grid failure.
Soon enough, WhatsApp was rife with instructions on how people should go about this whole process to avoid damaging their electrical appliances. One message suggested that people turn off their main power supply to the household to avoid any damage from the voltage fluctuation.
BOOM spoke to Ram Vinay Shahi, former Secretary to the Government of India in the Power Ministry, who dispelled the theory that there could be a grid failure due to turning off and turning on the lights.
"Switching off the lights will not be an issue as our grid is quite large - almost 125 GWs. At the most, lighting load will be around 12 GW, and our generating system will take care of this," he said. This suggests that the drop in power would likely amount to 10% of the country's electricity load, and the states are already taking measures in anticipation of this drop.
States Gear Up For Blackout
Precautions are being taken by states beforehand to ensure that power generation goes smoothly through blackout process. Uttar Pradesh's State Load Dispatch Centre (SLDC) sent out a letter to state utilities to take a series of measures to deal with the possibility of the sudden drop and surge in power demand on April 5.
The letter instructed field officers to keep all the reactors of the state grid running, while keeping the capacitor banks out of service. The letter also mentioned that "load shedding in a staggered manner may be done starting from approximately 8 pm to 9 pm" in the state.
Odisha government also sent out a letter, confirming that "people may continue running other appliances such as TV, Refrigerator and ACs in their homes without any apprehension." Contrary to what many of the WhatsApp messages have instructed, the letter specifically asked people to not turn of their main supply to the household, and to "switch on the lights in their home after 9.09 pm progressively with some time intervals".