Telangana’s government is likely to turn on the heat on the Centre, with the bone of contention being a key transmission line hanging fire for the last four years.
With inadequate transmission capacity holding up transfer of electricity to the new state and capital Hyderabad facing blackouts of over four hours on a daily basis, the K Chandrashekar Rao-led state government is gearing up to petition the NDA government at the Centre on the need to execute the 765 KV Wardha-Nizamabad-Hyderabad double circuit transmission corridor.
This crucial inter-regional link was awarded to state-owned Power Grid Corporation (PGCIL) way back in December 2010, but the implementation of the line has been in a limbo ever since.
According to a government official involved in the exercise, while currently land is available for sub stations at Wardha, Nizamabad and Hyderabad, progress on the project is held up as the PGCIL board is still to accord investment approval and orders have not yet been placed. Officials said that if the project were to be taken up now, commissioning should be possible by March 2017.
Once Wardha-Hyderabad link is completed, it might supply additional 2,500 MW to the southern region.
Besides, for states such as Telangana in the power-starved southern region of the country, an augmentation of the associated transmission systems of the Raichur–Solapur 765 KV double circuit line — the key grid link commissioned earlier this year between the southern region and the rest of the country — heralds hope for the future.
A rated capacity for wheeling 2,500 MW of power flows notwithstanding, transmission constraints continue to bottle up power flows to the southern region from the rest of the country as a dozen associated transmission lines on either sides of Raichur and Solapur are badly delayed.
Despite the two Raichur-Solapur lines going on stream, one link would have to be kept as a buffer under the single contingency (N-1) rule, which covers the possibility of the loss of any single transmission line at any time. The reliability margin covers for events such as the tripping of the 2,000 Mwe (mega watt electrical) Kudankulam atomic station, for which, a margin of at least 750 MW is to be set aside for this, leaving only a free transfer capacity of about 350 MW.
The flow on the line is likely to increase by 900 MW only by March 2015 upon the commissioning of the Solapur-Pune line.
