Industrial Visit to Power Grid Corporation of India Limited wasorganized by ISTE student Chapter DCE, Gurgaon on 20th February 2017. 18 students from CSIT, ECS and Civil EngineeringDepartments along with faculty Mrs Neha Verma (Assistant Professor, IT Dept.) of Dronacharya College of Engineering, Gurgaon visited the Power Grid Corporation of India Limited, Manesar, Gurgaon. The aim of the visit was to provide an understanding of the various techniques involved in working of a power substation monitoring and controlling centre.

Power Gridcame into presence on October 23, 1989 under the Companies Act of 1956 as 'National Power Transmission Corporation Limited (NPTCL)', with the responsibility of planning, executing, owning, operating and maintaining the high voltage transmission systems country. Starting as organization engaged in the management of the transmission assets,  the company now owns and operates about 1,34,018 circuit kms of transmission lines, has its own VoIP, Fiber optics based network and is connected to 214 sub - stations.It is also the Central Transmission Utility (CTU) of the country under Ministry of Power and is one amongst the largest Power Transmission utilities in the world. Power grid is playing a vital role in the growth of Indian power sector by developing a robust Integrated National Grid to provide Power for all.

The team was welcomed by Mr. Rohit Jain (Deputy Manager) and Mr. Adarsh (Senior  Engineer). The students were enlightened with information about working and handling operation of Power grid and how the centre act as key node to manage working of 120 sub-stations across the map of India. Mr. Adarsh also briefed about the process using which any malfunctioning at any substation can be remotely detected and its failure report can be generated. There are various engineering techniques that are involved in streamlining the operation of a power transmission plant and therefore students from different branches had one or the other thing to learn from this experience.

At the second part of training session, students got the chance to see how the centre keeps the eye on its sub-station to track any fault or misconduct during working hours. They also saw how any problem can be detected on time to avoid accidents and loss of asserts. Mr. S. Rehman (Senior Engineer, Training Cell) provided students with an insight of vision and goals of the company. He also explained that cyber security and secure communication are vital part of their system as in any case of system failure these parameters should not get affected. As they cannot rely on any third party for these services, Power Grid has its own VoIP and PoP system. At the last part of session he discussed how Power Grid managed to be only one of the kind in world as it handles the largest geographical region from single nodal centre and how the company plans to extend its network to 214 substations in coming years.

By means of this visit, students got the golden opportunity to understand the operation of different nodal units and various types of techniques employed in a Power Transmission Centre. The visit also catered as a source of motivation for the students as they got good exposure of various fields of technology such as cyber security, communication, networking system and infrastructural standards at one platform. Lastly, student from every department got to learn about innovative ideas and novel thinking approach which is necessary for their personal and professional development.

Some Glimpses of the Visit: