Massive power blackout in India

On July 30, 2012, India was hit by the worst power blackout in its history, affecting 19 of India's 36 states and leaving roughly half of the current population of 1.2 billion without electricity. This is certainly an over-estimate, as currently up to 40 percent of people only ever have access to the grid.

According to Reuters, peak-hour demand exceeds current power capacity by about 10 percent, impairing economic growth.
A weak monsoon that has resulted in a fall of hydroelectricity generation worsened the situation as people tried to cool down in scorching heat.

The Indian government has been slow to respond to some of the pressing challenges facing its population.
This power cut could offer the opportunity to make a change and transform India's energy-hungry economy into one that is greener, and more resilient to outages, which are even more likely to happen in the future is nothing is done about it.

Growth in demand exceeds new capacity being added by far.
The fact that there are only five electricity grids makes the system prone to failure.

People need to re-think the way power is generated, by opting for locally generated power using renewable sources like photovoltaics, solar-thermal power and wind. Microgrids connected to batteries would at least partly eliminate the need for expensive, environmentally-unfriendly diesel generators and kerosene, which are causing respiratory problems in the millions of people using them for lighting and cooking.