How Delhi cut electricity loss from 50 to 5 percent

德里如何将电力损耗从 50% 降至 5%

It’s 6 a.m. on a cold January morning in 2002 in New Delhi. It’s still dark outside, and I’m in the kitchen preparing breakfast, packing lunches, and getting my two children ready to catch the school bus when, for the third time in a week, the power goes out. No lights, no mixer to finish my daughter’s puttu—her favorite rice dish—no kettle, no toaster. The bathroom is dark, and the kids are upset.

2002 年 1 月的一个寒冷清晨，早上 6 点。窗外天色尚暗，我正在厨房准备早餐、打包午餐，并让两个孩子准备去赶校车。就在这时，一周内第三次停电了。没有灯光，搅拌机无法完成女儿最爱的米粉蒸糕（puttu），没有热水壶，也没有烤面包机。浴室里一片漆黑，孩子们也感到沮丧。

It will probably be hours before the power comes back on, so I grab a flashlight and light the candles that are set up around the house for these occasions. We’re behind schedule now. We pack the food we have, bundle up as the house turns chilly, and head outside, leaving a mess in the kitchen. We make our way to the bus stop in the dark—the streetlights are out, too—only to discover my daughter has missed her ride. Again. I’ll be late for work at Jamia Millia Islamia, a university where I am a professor of electrical engineering and teach power systems and smart grids. I just hope the power is on there.

电力恢复可能还需要几个小时，所以我拿起手电筒，点亮了家里为这种场合准备的蜡烛。我们现在已经耽误了时间。我们打包好现有的食物，在逐渐变冷的屋子里穿上厚衣服，然后出门，留下了一片狼藉的厨房。我们在黑暗中走向公交车站——路灯也熄灭了——结果发现女儿又错过了校车。我上班也要迟到了，我在贾米亚·米利亚伊斯兰大学（Jamia Millia Islamia）担任电气工程教授，负责教授电力系统和智能电网。我只希望学校那边有电。

This was a common scene for my family and all of Delhi in the early 2000s. Power outages happened almost daily and lasted hours. When the power was on, the quality was so poor that it would dim lights, flicker screens, and wreak havoc on appliances. Customer service at the power utilities essentially didn’t exist.

在 21 世纪初，这对我家以及整个德里来说都是司空见惯的场景。停电几乎每天都在发生，且持续数小时。当有电时，电力质量也非常差，导致灯光昏暗、屏幕闪烁，并对电器造成严重损坏。电力公司的客户服务几乎形同虚设。

These problems had been getting worse through the 1980s and 1990s. The cause: an aging distribution grid bereft of crucial technologies, and electricity providers with little accountability. The situation became so bad that the city was losing more than half of its power through obsolete equipment and theft. These staggering losses meant that utilities got paid for only a fraction of the electricity they were trying to deliver. And the lack of funds prevented them from investing in better grid infrastructure.

这些问题在 20 世纪 80 年代和 90 年代不断恶化。原因在于：配电网老化且缺乏关键技术，电力供应商也缺乏问责制。情况变得如此糟糕，以至于该市一半以上的电力因设备陈旧和盗电而损耗。这些惊人的损失意味着电力公司只能收到其输送电量的一小部分费用。而资金的匮乏又阻碍了他们投资改善电网基础设施。

But over the last quarter century, a remarkable effort by the government and the city’s distribution utilities has turned Delhi’s grid into a reliable, modern system. Power losses have shrunk from over 50 percent in 2002 to 5 to 6 percent in 2026—on par with France and Belgium, and better than Greece and Serbia. Delhi’s grid reliability index, a measure of how often electricity can be counted on, stood at around 70 percent in 2002 and has now topped 99.9 percent.

但在过去的四分之一个世纪里，政府和城市配电公司做出了卓越的努力，将德里的电网转变为一个可靠的现代化系统。电力损耗从 2002 年的 50% 以上缩减至 2026 年的 5% 到 6%——与法国和比利时持平，优于希腊和塞尔维亚。德里的电网可靠性指数（衡量电力供应稳定性的指标）在 2002 年约为 70%，如今已超过 99.9%。

With reliable power, businesses across the city have blossomed. The streetlights are bright. The number of electric vehicles, including city buses, is growing daily. Quality of life has improved. Today, my family is comfortable year-round in our home despite Delhi’s scorching summers and cold winters. The chaos of losing power no longer hinders me from getting to work. The city still has problems—pollution, overcrowding, noise—but thankfully, reliable power is no longer among them.

随着电力供应的可靠，全市的商业蓬勃发展。路灯明亮，包括城市公交车在内的电动汽车数量与日俱增，生活质量得到了改善。如今，尽管德里夏季炎热、冬季寒冷，但我的家人全年都能舒适地生活在家中。停电带来的混乱不再阻碍我上班。这座城市仍然存在污染、拥挤、噪音等问题，但值得庆幸的是，可靠的电力供应不再是其中之一。

The transformation of Delhi’s grid can serve as a model for other cities that suffer from decrepit power infrastructure. Regions of Albania, Argentina, Bangladesh, Brazil, Estonia, India, Kenya, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Uganda, and Venezuela are reeling from heavy losses in their distribution grids. Their problems look like Delhi’s 25 years ago. I believe it’s possible to improve electricity in these places by adapting the changes Delhi made. Here’s an inside look at how the city accomplished it.

德里电网的转型可以为其他遭受陈旧电力基础设施困扰的城市提供范本。阿尔巴尼亚、阿根廷、孟加拉国、巴西、爱沙尼亚、印度、肯尼亚、巴基斯坦、斯里兰卡、乌干达和委内瑞拉的部分地区正深受配电网严重损耗之苦。他们的问题看起来就像 25 年前的德里。我相信，通过借鉴德里的改革措施，这些地方的电力状况是有可能得到改善的。以下是该市如何实现这一目标的内幕。