Sitting in Bangalore and with one click of a computer mouse, can one take control of a power sub-station situated in far off place, say in Aurad taluk of Bidar district and regulate the power being supplied by the sub-station to surrounding villages there?
The answer is yes. This is possible, once the Karnataka Power Transmission Corporation Limited (KPTCL) completes it’s ambitious Integrated Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) project. After the completion of the project in about two years from now, it is virtually possible to trip a sub-station from Bangalore or monitor voltage of power being made available to a villager for his pump set or domestic connections in any village in the state.
The Rs 180 crore project is being executed by the Swedish multi-national company ABB.
For the project, the KPTCL has hired two V-Sat transponders from ISRO for transmitting data from all sub-stations in the state. The ABB has already begun the process of collecting data and preparing the software. At present, supervisory control is possible only in case of 400kw and also 220 kw stations.
“Once the project is through, one can supervise and control the energy from 850 and odd stations including the 11 kw lines”, sources in the KPTCL informed Deccan Herald. 
After the inter-state ‘Availability Based Tariff’ (ABT) system came into being about three years ago, in order to monitor the frequency level of energy, the use of Supervisory Control system has become more important. 
Now, that the Karnataka Electricity Regulatory Commission (KERC) is asking the distribution companies in the state to go in for intra-state ABT system, the execution of Integrated Extended SCADA has assumed greater significance. “After the completion of the project, each distribution company can have a mini control room, similar to the Load Despatch and Control Centre, we have here in Bangalore”, the source pointed out.