Indian Grid Agencies and IIT Kharagpur to Study Stability as Renewables Grow

The Northern Regional Load Despatch Centre, Grid Controller of India, and the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur have signed a memorandum of understanding for a research project on improving power system stability under low short-circuit ratio, or SCR, conditions. The agreement was signed on September 5, 2026, by Sajan George, Executive Director of the Northern Regional Load Despatch Centre, and Surjya Kanta Pal, Dean of Research and Development at IIT Kharagpur.

Traditional power plants use large spinning generators that naturally resist sudden changes in grid frequency, a property called inertia. As India adds more solar and wind power delivered through inverters, which lack this natural spinning inertia, maintaining grid stability becomes harder, particularly in areas with a low short-circuit ratio, a measure of how robust the local grid is relative to the power flowing through it.

Under the project, titled "Online Inertia Estimation and Adaptive/Synthetic Inertia Requirement for Stability Improvement of Low-SCR Power Systems with Protection Performance Evaluation," the partners will develop tools to estimate grid inertia in real time and assess synthetic inertia requirements across varying SCR levels, covering both grid-forming, or GFM, and grid-following, or GFL, inverters. The research will also evaluate how protection systems perform under low-inertia, low-SCR conditions.

The project will help develop tools for assessing inertia requirements and protection performance as India's power system incorporates a growing share of inverter-based renewable generation, contributing to a more stable and future-ready grid.