In accordance with section 28 and 29 of Electricity Act, 2003 roles and functions of RLDCs are as under:

i) The RLDCs shall be the Apex Body to ensure integrated operation of power system in the concerned Region.

ii) The RLDCs shall comply with such principles, guidelines and methodologies in respect of wheeling and optimum scheduling and despatch of electricity as specified by the Central Commission in the Grid Code.

iii) The RLDCs shall:

a) be responsible for optimum scheduling and despatch of electricity within the region in accordance with the contracts entered into with the licensees or the generating companies operating in the region.

b) monitor grid operations.

c) keep accounts of quantity of electricity transmitted through the regional grid.

d) exercise supervision and control over the inter-State transmission system.

e) be responsible for carrying out real time operation for grid control and despatch of electricity within the region through secure and economic operation of the regional grid in accordance with the Grid standards and Grid code.

iv) The RLDCs may give such directions and exercise such supervision and control as may be required for ensuring stability of the grid operations and for achieving the maximum economy and efficiency in the operation of the power system in the region under its control. NRLDC is performing the responsibility of Supervision, monitoring and control of integrated operation of Northern Regional grid in coordination with all State power utilities in the Region, Central generating Stations etc. to ensure stability and security of the grid operation in accordance with IEGC. To aid decision process RLDC and all SLDCs in the Region are taking support of a modern State of the art SCADA and communication system set up in NRLDC and all SLDCs to obtain power system data in real time from all sub-stations and generating stations in the Region. Energy Management System (EMS) packages i.e. Load / inflow forecasting, resource scheduling and commitment, State estimation, power flow studies, contingency analysis, optimal power flow and real time generation application etc. provided along with the SCADA system enable the system operator at NRLDC in taking the correct decision in planning contingency handling.

· Coordinating and issuing drawal schedules of State Power Utilities from all Central Generating Stations and dispatch schedules of Central Generating Stations. For this the Central Generating Stations declare the availability of their stations one day in advance to NRLDC who works out and conveys the SLDCs of the State power utilities their entitlement from Central Generating Stations. The SLDCs, in turn, assess the demand and availability of the State or DISCOMS, as may be the case, based on States/DISCOMs generation availability, bilateral agreement etc. and conveys the consolidated requisition of the State to NRLDC. Accordingly NRLDC issues the final drawal schedule of State power utilities and dispatch schedule of Central Generating stations for the next day which becomes the datum for settling the commercial issues.

· Facilitating transactions of power under short-term and long term open access for inter/intra regional exchanges following regulations and procedures issued by the Central/State Electricity Regulatory Commission and Central Transmission Utilities.

· The RLDCs of the Region, where point of drawal of electricity is situated, shall be the Nodal Agency for the short-term transmission access in case of open access in inter-State transmission.

· Collecting the meter readings from all interconnected / boundary point, central generating stations, computes the average energy for 15 minutes time block, compares the deviations from the schedule and computes the unscheduled inter change (UI) charges for the corresponding time block based on UI rates of average frequency during the time block.

· Issuing clearance for outage of grid elements for maintenance work.