There is one pivotal era in
history that forever changed the way we look at productivity. At the dawn of
the industrial revolution, productive output was fundamentally constrained by
the limits of human toil or animal strength and by the boundaries of available
land. The industrial revolution paved the way to exponential and sustainable
economic growth, to a point that new generations were afforded the confidence
that the economy that they will eventually shape would be better off than the
one wrought by their forefathers.
At the height of the revolution,
electric power was identified as a foremost factor in encouraging a viable
economic growth – and that has not changed till now. As the demand for energy
exponentially increases in today’s expanding economies, the need to support a
country or a region’s electricity requirement becomes ever more crucial. In
order to sustain the economic momentum of any given country or region, an ample
and continuous supply of clean, viable and affordable energy is imperative.
When power is not enough
The Indian Sub-continent is
enjoying an economic upturn. According to a recently published market report
from the Asian Development Bank, the South Asian region is predicted to grow by
5.3% in 2014 and by 5.8% in 2015. India’s economy, taken alone, is forecast to
achieve growth rates of anywhere between 5.5% and 6%.
Behind India’s burgeoning economy
is power: Power to manufacture, to drill for oil, to fly millions of passengers
in and out of the country, to sail the seas with tons of export goods on board,
to put on computers, to light up offices and to activate phone lines necessary
for worldwide communications. India’s economic growth is a testament to one of
the basic tenets of the industrial revolution: That electricity gives economies
the power to catapult themselves to heights they thought would never be
possible to reach. And India is reaping the fruits of that.
There is, however, a looming
electricity supply issue that may challenge India’s continuous economic growth.
Energy industry experts ascertain that there are 1.4 billion people in the
world who have no access to electricity, and they estimate that over 300
million of them are in India. Recorded data in recent years show that demand for
energy in India has consistently outstripped the supply, both in terms of base
load energy and peak availability. Studies show that the country registers an
8.5% deficit in base load requirement and a 9.8% short-fall in peak load
requirement. Seconding this observation, India’s Central Electricity Authority
forecasts that the energy deficiency will affect all of the country’s regions
and that, though Northern India expects a power surplus during the monsoon
months (as its power generation capacity is predominantly dependent on
hydropower), the spare capacity will gradually recede during the winter months.
India’s government has responded
to the pressing situation by launching ambitious rural electrification
programs, but the challenge proves to be vast that it could not be resolved in
an instant. Ground research shows that approximately 400 million Indians still
lose electricity during blackouts and that 35.5% of Indian households still has
limited access to electricity. The compelling need to urgently address the
economic repercussion of the imminent power instability was more vividly drawn
by a study conducted by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and
Industries in 2012. The document showed that power interruptions in India could
result in approximately 10% in production short-fall, leading to revenue losses
of up to INR 40,000 per day.
Who could forget the massive
blackout of 2012 that left 700 million people in India without electricity? In
what is touted to be one of the worst blackouts in history, twenty of India’s
28 states suffered the effects of the power interruption that almost incited
social instability and protests for fears that the country was no longer in the
position to support its booming local energy demand. The repercussion was
almost journalistically indescribable: traffic jams all over the affected
cities, babies wailing of heat, bodies half-burnt at crematoriums, patients
gasping for every breath of life, miners trapped underground in complete
darkness, passengers stranded in the middle of miles of track.
While stakeholders strive to
bridge the supply gap, India’s demand for electricity is not showing signs of
slowing down. Industry studies indicate that India’s manufacturing sector will
continue to grow at an even faster pace and that domestic demand will increase
more rapidly.
Power that sustain power
In these crucial times, India’s
power generation infrastructure needs all the support it can get. The
governments and the utility companies may be moving mountains to immediately
resolve the present and the impending energy sooner, but with the scope and
extent of the difficulty, they may not be able to do it single-handedly.
Temporary power generation
companies, like Altaaqa Global CAT Rental Power, a leading global provider of
interim energy facilities, have the capacity to support the existing power
generation infrastructure, with the end of bridging the gap in electricity
supply as, where and when the necessity be. Hiring power plants has tested and
recognized merits, particularly in cases of emergencies or natural calamities,
unplanned power failures, unforeseen delays in power projects, temporary plant
shutdowns, load shedding or peak shaving. Signing an agreement with interim
power providers can also prove beneficial when electricity distribution
facilities are not available in certain areas, like in dispersed communities;
when permanent power stations are still
being constructed or commissioned or when energy generation facilities are
being expanded or refurbished.
India’s initiative to harness
alternative sources of energy, like geothermal, hydroelectric, solar, wind and
tidal has proven to be effective, but seasonal changes may alter the operations
of the aforementioned facilities. For instance, some parts of the country where
hydroelectric power stations operate may experience droughts or prolonged
absence of rain, which in turn can drastically reduce the power generation
capacity of the said plants. Solar or photovoltaic farms thrive during summer
months but may experience shortage in production in months when days are
predominantly cloudy or rainy. In these cases, rental power plants may support
the power generation capacity of the current facilities if only to bridge the
gap during the crucial months of seasonal change.
With its large manufacturing
sector, production facilities in India often need to double, may be even
triple, their capacities to meet the international production requirement in
certain months, say during Christmas or Diwali. While a manifold increase in
production bodes well for a company’s income, the consequent spike in power
consumption may usher in operational challenges. It is highly probable that
during the same peak months, utility companies will set ceiling caps for
electricity consumption or will ask production facilities to pay an additional
consumption premium during peak hours. In this case, based on cost-benefit
studies conducted among industries within the arc of peak months, it will be
more economically sound to hire a temporary power plant than to pay an
additional fee for every peak kilowatt used, shut down parts of the production
complex when power usage is at its peak, or pay a hefty fine for using more
power than what has been allocated for a company’s function. Peaker power plants
(peakers for short) are an ideal solution offered by energy rental companies
like Altaaqa Global to curb seasonal electricity demand during peak production
months.
Of all unforeseen occurrences, a
natural disaster may prove to be the most difficult to immediately address.
Calamities like earthquakes, tsunamis and hurricanes have the capacity to
destroy roads; interrupt power, water and communication lines and cripple
transportation routes. In these cases, local or governmental entities may need
assistance from a temporary power service provider that has the logistical
capabilities to deploy, install, commission and run interim power plants
anywhere in the world, on a short notice. Altaaqa Global’s temporary power
products and genset technologies are the most efficient solution for a rapid
capacity application, owing to their modular and flexible design, especially
engineered for swift mobilization and start-up.
Partners in mobile power
To fully capitalize on the
advantages of temporary power technologies, the governments and the utility
companies in India need to be keen and discerning in hiring an interim energy
service provider. In selecting a temporary electricity partner, one should look
at the provider’s experience, organization, support system, rate of deployment
and equipment reliability and sustainability before signing an agreement with
it.
One of the most important things
to consider when entering into an agreement with a rental energy provider is
its track record in delivering executable, measurable and sustainable solutions
to a wide array of projects. It is essential to ascertain if the rental power
plant provider has thorough experience in delivering temporary power plants in
complex situations, like city-wide utility electrification. The exercise of
putting an interim power provider at the helm of a project or of a city’s
electrification program will prove to be counterproductive if the chosen
partner does not have the technical experience and the required organization to
deliver what it promises. If the mobile generator company cannot supply the
required power, it may cause more delays in the project, eventually leading to
legal disputes and further economic damage. It should be heavily chalked up
that utility companies should avoid dealing with backyard rental companies that
will over-promise but will eventually under-deliver.
Though temporary power plants,
like the ones provided by Altaaqa Global, are engineered to endure even the
harshest conditions known to man, they are by no means indestructible. The
governments and the utility companies in India must keep in mind that the
service of a rental energy company should not end when the electric power generators
are switched on. The company should have the spare parts and the human
resources to carry out after-sales support to installed and commissioned
projects at any given location, at any given time. Whether the project is in
the middle of a mountain for a mining operation or in the hot burning Gulf
desert for oil & gas refineries, the rental power provider should have the
capability to support its temporary power plants, whenever and wherever.
Proving solutions when needed and
where needed is the prime reason for being of rental power companies, like
Altaaqa Global. An interim energy partner should have the capability to react,
deploy, mobilize and commission temporary power plants at a moment’s notice.
This means that the provider should have available equipment and manpower on
the ground to carry out a rapid delivery. If the rental company has the
available equipment to deploy and a team of professional logistic personnel
that can deal with the complexities of ports, customs and transportation, then help
is on the way to immediately solve the power crisis.
Providing solutions to power
requirement of different entities does not follow a template nor is governed by
a rule of thumb. Each case should be carefully studied and evaluated in order
for rental power companies to prescribe an optimal solution. The only way that
an interim energy company can afford to meet the exact requirement of any
client is for it to have the adequate and state-of-the-art technologies
available in its product line. Altaaqa Global has a wide range of large-scale
temporary power plants running on gas, diesel or dual-fuel (70% gas and 30%
diesel). It also offers systems on liquefied natural gas (LNG) and on
compressed natural gas (CNG), in recognition of rigid sets of licensing and
sustainability regulations that may exist in some parts of India.
Altaaqa Global also proposes
state-of-the-art products that pushes the envelope of technological
flexibility. One of the company’s flagship innovation is the variable
operational mode that can switch from island to grid mode in just seconds. It
provides the most scalable power solution to support base load, intermediate,
peaking or standby power generation.
Altaaqa Global also offers the
first and only substation-free power plants, specifically engineered to serve
places in India where they may not be substations. These temporary power plants
require no substations and can directly be hooked to the grid.
You do growth, we do power
The advantages of renting
temporary energy facilities are multifarious, especially from the prism of
cost-savings, flexibility and continuous energy supply. Hiring interim energy
plants means that the governments and the utility companies in India will not
have to shell out huge capital (CAPEX) to erect permanent power generation
facilities if the heightened demand is just seasonal or momentary. Provisional
electric power plants are also equipped with state-of-the-art innovations that
allow them to increase or decrease the capacity following the end-user’s requirement.
More importantly, mobile power technologies can provide electricity to any
entity as it is needed, when it is needed and where it is needed.
End
* The foregoing article was published in the July 2014 issue of Power Today (ASAPP Media, India). To read more: http://bit.ly/1omDahQ *
PRESS INQUIRIES
Robert Bagatsing
Altaaqa Global
Tel: +971 56 1749505
