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Discriminatory approach for RuPay debit cards: Some suggestions for corrective measures
No full textWe look into issues and concerns arising out of the recent payment system initiative on MDR for RuPay debit cards and BHIM-UPI. Some suggestions are given as corrective measures
Non-synchronous fast frequency reserves in renewable energy integrated power systems: A critical review
No full textThe last few decades have seen renewable energy source (RES) integration growing at a rapid pace and this trend is likely to continue. The displacement of conventional synchronous plant, particularly at higher RES shares, is resulting in a ‘lighter’ system with low system inertia and reduced governor droop stiffness, leading to increased vulnerability to fast frequency stability. This paper presents a review of literature from the research and industry communities on possible sources of non-synchronous fast frequency reserve, considered as a potential solution to address diminishing synchronous reserve in RES integrated systems. The wide range of potential sources includes wind turbines, solar photovoltaic plant, energy storage, high voltage direct current (HVDC) systems, and demand response. The challenges and limitations associated with each approach are highlighted, and alternative strategies to maintain a minimum volume of security constrained fast frequency reserve are discussed based on the recent industry trend
To surcharge or not to surcharge! The plight of small and medium merchants
Full text linkGovernment of India on February 29, 2016 came out with cabinet approved guidelines for Promotion of Payments through Cards and Digital means. These guidelines provide some directions setting catalysts to migrate the country to a digital payment embracing society. Apart from rationalizing merchant discount rate (MDR), the guidelines emphasise withdrawal of any merchant charges (called surcharge) imposed on consumers while paying through cards and digital means.
During the past three years, India has seen a transformational shift of the government’s push to promote digital payments. The demonetisation of specified bank notes gave a catalytic effect and led to several innovative payment products. Both RBI and the government contributed significantly by bringing in regulatory changes and incentives for end users.
However, despite all efforts by RBI and the government, there are several friction points that still inhibit the promotion of payments through cards and digital means. Focusing on MDR and related surcharge on digital payments, we look into possible sanitisation of distortions in the digital payments space.
After a quick look into the recent growth in the retail digital payments, we discuss some of the regulations enforced and their impact on the retail payment space, particularly those on surcharges in digital payments. We show multiple instances of organised surcharging on debit/credit card and BHIM-UPI transactions in violation to extant rules and regulations. We bring to light the extant lack of accountability of acquirer banks and card payment networks. Also, the ecosystem’s creation of a dichotomy while allowing banks to surcharge on credit cards for only a certain category of merchants in a discriminatory fashion is also discussed. Finally, we give some concluding remarks and show the way forward
Response of Systems and Components in a Base-Isolated Nuclear Power Plant Building Impacted by a Large Commercial Aircraft
No full textEarthquake shaking must be addressed in the design of a nuclear power plant (NPP). The impact of a large commercial airliner on a nuclear power plant building is considered a beyond-design-basis event but assessment is required for new reactors. This paper investigates the effect of beyond-design-basis impact of a large commercial airliner on a base-isolated NPP constructed to resist the effects of design-basis earthquake shaking. A finite element model of the testbed NPP is analyzed for design-basis shaking at a site of high seismic hazard and for aircraft impact. Spectral demands on systems and components inside but not attached to the containment vessel are compared for (1)design-basis shaking of the conventionally constructed testbed; (2)design-basis shaking of the base-isolated testbed; and (3)aircraft impact loading of the base-isolated testbed. The importance of isolation-system parameters, soil-structure-interaction (SSI), and soil modeling on the impact-related spectral demands of the isolated NPP are investigated and reported. Elastic material behavior is assumed for the superstructure and the soil, and nonlinear hysteretic behavior is assumed for the lead-rubber isolation system. For the assumed aircraft impact, the installation of a seismic isolation system increases in-structure spectral demands on structures, systems, and components inside containment with respect to the fixed-base condition. In-structure spectral demands due to aircraft impact in a base-isolated NPP are insensitive to the secant period and/or characteristic strength of the isolation system. The effect of soil-structure interaction on the impact response is significant for the fixed-base NPP but relatively small for the base-isolated NPP
Integration of Process Model and CIM to Represent Events and Chronology in Power System Processes
No full textThe conventional power system domain includes various utility business processes that are carried out by multiple market participants. In the conventional setup, these processes are typically captured through various local representations understandable by the concerned actors in their respective subdomains. The heterogeneity in process representations can result in problems of traceability, transparency, time-trackability, and interoperability across actors and software systems. To orchestrate the utility business processes, the IEC has recently started an activity entitled "IEC 62325-451-2: 2014" for representing the "energy scheduling business process" of the European market in a standardized way. Along similar lines, this paper presents a process ontology along with a systematic methodology for building process models of end-to-end process operations of power utility. The process ontology consists of power system process modeling artifacts such as process, participant, activity, gateway, event, and event-based subprocess. For representing events and chronology of task execution, the common information model (CIM) can be adopted, which is expected to act complementary to process ontology semantics. An energy scheduling application is considered as a case study, wherein the proposed process ontology artifacts and the CIM ontology are used for building process models for an "energy scheduling business process" in the Indian power grid context