A provenance-tracked State-day panel of India’s power system built from official public reports, 2018–2026

India operates one of the largest synchronized electricity grids in the world, a vast network where power flows seamlessly across state lines to meet the needs of millions. In this system, every state acts as a distinct unit, balancing how much electricity it needs against how much it is allowed to take from the national pool. When a state takes more than its share, it creates a strain on the system; when it takes less, it leaves energy unused. To keep this massive machine running smoothly, operators rely on daily reports that track demand, generation, and the cost of balancing these flows. However, for years, this critical information has been scattered across hundreds of separate documents, each with its own layout, file name, and quirks. Some reports are in spreadsheets, others in PDFs, and the way they are organized changes over time, making it difficult for researchers to piece together a clear picture of how the grid actually performs day by day.

A researcher at the Dr. B. R. Ambedkar National Institute of Technology Jalandhar has now solved this puzzle by building a single, unified record of India's power system from April 2018 through August 2026. This new dataset, which covers thirty-four different state control areas, brings together over one hundred thousand daily snapshots of the grid's behavior. It combines official data on electricity demand, the amount of power generated by coal, gas, hydro, and nuclear plants, and the growing contribution of wind and solar energy. It also tracks the prices paid for electricity, the fees charged for taking too much or too little power, and even the weather conditions that influence how much energy people need. The result is a massive table containing more than ten million individual numbers, all organized so that a researcher can see exactly what was known on any given day, including how long it took for that information to become public.

The work involved a meticulous process of gathering thousands of official files from three government bodies: the Grid Controller of India, the Central Electricity Authority, and the India Meteorological Department. These files are not a neat, pre-packaged dataset; they are raw reports that change their structure frequently. For instance, a report might list the states in a different order one year and in another order the next, or a table might shift its columns, confusing automated tools that try to read them. The researcher wrote computer programs to navigate these changes, identifying the correct tables and columns in each file, regardless of how the layout had shifted. The system is designed to be reproducible, meaning that if someone else were to download the same original files and run the same programs, they would arrive at the exact same numbers. Every single file used is recorded with its web address, the time it was downloaded, and a unique digital fingerprint to ensure the data has not been altered.

One of the most important features of this new record is its honesty about timing. In the real world, data is never available instantly. A report about yesterday's electricity usage might not be published until this morning, and a report on carbon emissions might take months to appear. The researcher annotated every piece of information with a delay, noting exactly how many days passed between the event and the moment it became public. This allows scientists to study the grid without accidentally using information that was not yet available at the time of their analysis, a common mistake that can make forecasts look better than they really are. For example, the main daily report on power supply usually appears about ten hours after the day ends, while price data can take nearly two weeks to be released in a usable format.

The team verified the accuracy of their work by comparing their numbers against the totals printed in the original government reports, finding that their calculations matched perfectly. They also cross-checked their data against an independent collection of the same reports, finding that their figures agreed within one percent for more than seventy-five thousand state-days. This high level of agreement confirms that the complex process of merging these disparate sources has not introduced errors. The dataset also includes a record of carbon emissions, calculated by combining the amount of fuel burned with official emission factors, providing a daily view of the grid's environmental impact.

This record fills a significant gap in energy research for India. While other countries have established platforms that provide clean, daily data on their power systems, India's operational data has remained fragmented and difficult to use. By creating this single, provenance-tracked panel, the researcher has provided a foundation for better forecasting and risk management. The data covers a period that includes the transition to newer regulatory rules for pricing and the shift to a new portal for renewable energy reports, ensuring that the record remains continuous despite these administrative changes. The work does not claim to predict the future or solve the grid's problems on its own, but it provides the clear, reliable historical record necessary for anyone trying to understand how India's power system behaves, how it responds to weather, and how it is evolving as more renewable energy comes online.