Earth System Science Organization, India Meteorological Department (ESSO-IMD), of the Ministry of Earth Sciences and Power System Operation Corporation (POSOCO), a wholly owned subsidiary of Power Grid Corporation of India signed a Memorandum of Understanding for optimum use of weather information, forecast in the power sector.
 
Salient features of the MoU signed in the presence of senior officers from the Ministry of Power and the Ministry of Earth Sciences today, include:
 
> All weather information provided by ESSO-IMD shall be used by the Power System Operators across the India for better management of Indian Power System and for the purpose of analysis.

> ESSO-IMD shall make available current weather information for the identified stations; and forecasts at different time scales (nowcasts to medium range scales) of temperature, humidity, wind speed, wind direction, rainfall and other meteorological parameters of the identified stations/sectors.

> ESSO-IMD shall provide weather warnings about likely occurrences of thunderstorm, heat wave, cold wave, rainfall, fog etc. over various states up to next 72 hours.

> ESSO-IMD shall provide state / region wise Monthly /Seasonal outlooks of weather conditions.

> Both the parties agreed to provide expert opinion and knowledge support in areas of Weather information and its affect on power distribution system.

> Data & Inputs shall be exchanged to encourage further study and research work.

> POSOCO shall endeavor for economic assessment of impact of weather & climate information. Regular feed mechanism shall be put in place for continued up-gradation of the services.

The MoU is necessitated by the fact that energy sector is one of many spheres of human activity which are highly dependent on weather conditions. To increase the efficiency of power sector & to make them weather proof, it is not sufficient to act after they have taken place. Proactive steps are required to minimise the possible adverse impacts.

Weather information on different time scales is essential both in day-to-day energy management and for the definition of production and distribution infrastructures. Day to day weather variations have an impact on load demand and energy production, transport and distribution management, as well as energy prices. Extreme events such as heat waves or cold waves, wind storms or floods can of course have dramatic consequences on the production means or the electrical grid of a country including physical damage to the infrastructure. In addition to short & medium-term management processes the long-term production & supply planning require climate data and future climate scenarios. In order to manage the risks associated with weather and climate conditions on all time scales from a few minutes to a century, reliable weather forecasts and climate information -past, present and future are therefore crucial to reduce the uncertainty in supply and demand forecasts, as well as market dynamics.