SCADA i.e., Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition is a real time industrial process control systems used to centrally monitor and control remote or local industrial equipment such as motors, valves, pumps, relays etc. SCADA is used to control:
- chemical plant processes,
- oil and gas pipelines,
- electrical generation and transmission equipment,
- manufacturing facilities,
- water purification and distribution infrastructures etc.
On 31 July, 2012 a news broke relating to the blackout in 20 states of India due to Northern Electricity Grid Failure which subsequently led to the failure of Eastern and North Eastern Electricity Grid Failure.
Although all the political parties and the news channels kept broadcasting the news that this was caused due to the excessive drawing of electrical power from few states but being an independent cyber security researcher and working in SCADA security, my intuition isn't ready to accept the statements given by India’s Power Grid Corporation as:
“There was overdrawing of power as the demand peaked.
As a result, two to three grids tripped simultaneously.”
My query is:
In summer season (in 2012), there was a time when the demand for power supply was so high that most of the parts of cities in Northern India were not able to get the electricity for 8-10 hours a day (my personal experience). In such a critical demand time nothing happened!
There was only load-shedding but no failure of any electricity grid.
Why So?
Wasn't the current blamed states by the Central Government
were drawing the electricity in excess at that time?
If Yes, then why the Power Grid failure didn't occurred at that time?
to be continued...
