New Delhi:
National electricity grid operator POSOCO chairman KVS Baba on Friday said Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the next great thing the state-owned firm plans to use for demand forecasting. Baba was speaking at a virtual global workshop titled ‘Power Utility Challenges during COVID-19 Pandemic‘ organised by Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) India Council and Power & Energy Society (PES) India Chapters Council with panelists from various countries, the Power System Operation Corporation (POSOCO) said in a statement.
The POSOCO chairman and managing director also stressed upon distribution companies (discoms) to use AI and derive patterns based on this technology. “Demand forecasting is still a challenge but for system operator more forecast errors mean more reserves to be kept on our part to meet variables,” Baba said in the statement. When asked about variation in renewable, the CMD said that renewables are highly unpredictable since sub-stations are not yet highly efficient in terms of data logging.
Baba asked all the academic institutions to take initiative on their own and go to state power utilities and join hands with them, starting from discoms. About the COVID-19 impact on the national grid operator, Baba said the pandemic helped to work more efficiently. POSOCO is a wholly owned Government of India enterprise under the Ministry of Power. It was formed in March 2009 to handle the power management functions of Power Grid Corporation of India Limited but made a separate company in January 2017.
It is responsible to ensure the integrated operation of the Grid in a reliable, efficient, and secure manner. It consists of five Regional Load Despatch Centres (RLDCs) and the National Load Despatch Centre (NLDC).