The Power Grid Corporation of India Limited (PGCIL) has come up with a detailed proposal for establishing a transmission system for the evacuation of power from potential solar and wind energy zones in the country’s western region.
PGCIL has announced the details of the program, including the justification, estimated cost, tariff impact, results of the system studies, and study assumptions. They have requested stakeholder feedback on their program by June 7, 2019.
The government has set a target to establish 175 GW of renewable capacity by 2022, which includes 100 GW from solar and 60 GW from wind installations. The transmission infrastructure has been identified as one of the major impediments to achieving renewable installation goals.
The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) constituted a sub-committee last year to identify ISTS connectivity for renewable energy projects from potential solar energy zones (SEZs) and potential wind energy zones (WEZs) of about 50 GW and 16.5 GW respectively.
To bolster energy and transmission efficiency in the country, the MNRE and PGCIL started the Green Energy Corridor program to evacuate renewable energy from power surplus states to power deficit states. Under the program, the development of an intra-state transmission network is to be overseen by the MNRE, and the PGCIL will oversee the inter-state transmission network.
The proposal is to develop the transmission infrastructure in two phases. A total of 20 GW of solar and 9 GW of wind projects have been planned in Phase-I (up to December 2020), and 30 GW of solar and 7.5 GW of wind are planned for Phase-II (December 2021).
