Last week, the largest blackout of the world occurred and it is very sad that it is not very uncommon for most of the Indian population. Frequently, petite but scheduled blackouts do occur in the country and people have become used to it. They know that the electricity is bound to go off frequently and most of them were prepared with either the inverters or diesel generators. However, not everyone can afford to have generators or inverters therefore wide range of people were left in dark. Along with that infrastructure of the country was also very deeply affected, train network being one of them.

Indian Meteorological Department have put much blame on nature by saying that as the rainfall in the monsoon seasons of June and July was only 81 percent, it not only affected capacity of plants but also forced farmers to draw extra electric supply to irrigate their fields with water. So it was a double blow to already crippled grid system.

This means that if the grid is able to respond quickly and mitigate the effects of the causes that results in its failure then the blackouts could be avoided. If there is power fluctuation occurring in the grid then if it is to stay online, it should react instantly in a period of just about milliseconds. The Phase measurement units i.e. PMU’s are the devices that could be used to handle the power fluctuation situations in a large scale grid. It ensures that whole network remains in synchronization all the time and isolate the above mentioned problems. The Indian Central Electricity authority has decided to install PMU’s but managed only in about 14 locations. It should take it more seriously and installed in all grids.

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