HISTORY OF STATE LOAD DESPATCH CENTRE
Initially the operation of the Gujarat grid system was coordinated from the central thermal power station at Dhuvaran.Later,as the complexity and the size of the network increased, the need for close coordination was realized.
By 1969, the Gujarat power grid was connected with maharashtra grid system through tarapur Atomic Power by 220kv lines. In 1969,the Load dispatch centre was established at Gotri (Baroda) from where adequate communication facilities were already available to various outstations. Initially the Load Despatch at Gotri worked in two shifts only with skeleton number of staff with a small painted wooden board to display system mimic diagram. The Load Despatch Centre was shifted to Jambuva on 17th May 1974 and sophisticated power line carrier communication was provided for operation, control and coordination. The facilities available at Jambuva are express speech communication, teleprinter services between LDC and outstations, telemetering services of parameters of power stations and sub-stations.
The Load Despatch Centre at Jambuva,later on, Computerized in the year 1984 with the equipments received under WREB project. In the first stage of the project, only SCADA functions sere made available at LDC.
The Board is now planning for extending facilities of advanced level functions at LDC during current plan period. In order to implement various advanced level functions for better and efficient power system management. S-386 system/sub-system has been installed now at LDC, Jambuva.
As the system has been expanded enormously, it has become necessary to distribute the work load concentrated at SLDC to ALDCs.Keeping this in view, it has been decided to establish three Area Load Despatch Centres(ALDCs) one in North Gujarat, one at Central Gujarat and one at West Gujarat. These ALDCs will carry out data acquisition and alarm monitoring of system parameters in respect of the area and data transfer to SLDC.
These Area Load Despatch Centres will monitor the radial feeders and take corrective actions on associated equipments. They will also carry out switching of equipments and lines at Grid Stations as per directives from SLDC.They have to manage the load as per schedule finalized in advance or in case of any incidents in the area directed by SLDC.They have to collect all relavant information regarding all system events and report to SLDC for further analysis and for taking follow up action for system improvement.
The SLDC shifted to new premises at Gotri, Baroda on August 8, 2005 and ALDC at Jambuva, Jetpur and Gandhinagar all three are working in co-ordination with SLDC.