MoP - Ministry of Power

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TOWARDS FORMATION OF NATIONAL GRID
Ministry of Power has envisaged the establishment of an
integrated National Power Grid in the country by the year
2012 with an inter-regional power transfer capacity of about
37,700 MW. The exploitable energy resources in our
country are concentrated in certain pockets. As a result,
some regions do not have adequate natural resources for
setting power plants to meet the future requirements
whereas others have abundant natural resources. This has
necessitated the formation of National Power Grid to
transmit power from resource rich to deficit area as well
as facilitate scheduled/ unscheduled exchange of power.
A perspective transmission plan has been evolved for
strengthening the regional grids with ultimate objective of
establishment of strong & vibrant National Grid to support
the generation capacity addition program of XI Plan. Details
are given at Annexure-I.
Further, acquiring Right of Way (ROW) for constructing
transmission system is getting increasingly difficult. This
necessitates creation of high capacity “Transmission
Highways”, so that in future, constraints in ROW do not
become bottleneck in harnessing natural resources.
Working towards this plan, POWERGRID has
implemented various inter regional schemes and inter
regional power transfer capacity of about 17,000 MW is
established by November, 2007. Four major power regions
of the country namely, North-Eastern, Eastern, Western
and Northern are now operating as one synchronous grid
A view of Transmission Towers
with total generating capacity of about 1,00,000 MW. This
is facilitating free flow of power from surplus to deficit
regions bringing much needed economy.
3.4 PRIVATE SECTOR PARTICIPATION IN
TRANSMISSION
POWERGRID has been successful in facilitating private
investment in transmission sector. POWERGRID’s first
Joint Venture project, Transmission System associated with
Tala Hydroelectric Project, East-North Inter-connector and
Northern India Transmission System, with M/s. Tata Power
was commissioned successfully in August, 2006.
Action has been initiated to bring in more private investment
in transmission projects for eg : Transmission system
associated with Koldam & Parbati-II is also proposed to
be executed on JV route. Besides, in addition some
transmission lines under Western Region Strengthening
Scheme-II (Sets B&C) on tariff based bidding through 100%
private sector participation (IPTC route) in line with CERC
directive are being implemented.
Ministry of Power has notified guidelines for encouraging
competition in development of transmission projects.
Guidelines for tariff based bidding for transmission projects
have also been notified by the Ministry. In terms of Para
13 of the guidelines for Encouraging Competition in
Development of Transmission Projects, an Empowered
Committee has been constituted for identification of
projects and selection of developers. The Empowered
Committee has identified 14 transmission projects for
development through competitive bidding.