Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC) in a recent order has adopted the transmission charges of “Kallam Transmission Ltd” that were discovered under the tariff-based competitive bidding route.
Kallam Transmission Ltd was awarded to the successful bidder, which is a consortium of IndiGrid 1 Ltd (equity: 70 per cent) and IndiGrid 2 Ltd (equity: 30 per cent), under the TBCB route.
Winning tariff
The winning tariff discovered under the bidding process followed by the e-reverse auction (e-RA) was Rs.16.736 crore per year. In the final stage of bidding, there were four contenders in the race. Adani Transmission Ltd with a quote of Rs.16.778 crore per year came a very close second, followed by Torrent Power (Rs.19.908 crore per year) and ReNew Transmission Ventures Pvt Ltd (Rs.21.396 crore per year).
It is interesting to note that before the e-RA, the winning consortium had finished second with a quote of Rs.25 crore per year.
The scheme
Kallam Transmission Ltd would be entrusted with the development of a transmission scheme, officially known as “Transmission system for evacuation of power from renewable energy projects in Osmanabad area (1 GW) in Maharashtra.”
The project, envisaged for completion in 18 months (from the SPV acquisition date of December 28, 2021) entails among various other elements, the establishment of 2×500 MVA, 400/220kV substation near Kallam Pooling Station (PS) and LILO of both circuits (running around 18 km) of the 400kV double-circuit Parli-Pune line at Kallam PS. Costing around Rs.245 crore, the transmission scheme, currently under implementation, is scheduled to complete by June 2023.
The Pune-Parli line issue
It may be mentioned that Western Transco Pvt Ltd (an Adani Group company) had raised objections to the laying of OPGW (optical ground wire) on the Pune-Parli transmission line for which WTPL holds the transmission licence. It may be mentioned that OPGW was envisaged in the original TSA but the revised TSA removed this project element. Hence, WTPL submitted that it now does not have any objection to grant of transmission licence to Kallam Transmission Ltd.
LTTC
The long term transmission customer (LTTC) of this project is ReNew Solar Power Pvt Ltd, with whom Kallam Transmission Ltd signed the transmission service agreement (TSA) on September 30, 2021.
Current status
The EPC contract for the project was awarded on January 14, 2022. While design and engineering works on the substation as well as the LILO are in progress, it is learnt through official reports that Kallam Transmission Ltd is currently facing difficulties in acquiring land for the Kallam substation. It is further learnt that Central Electricity Authority, in a communication dated April 26, 2022, has directed the district administration of Osmanabad to assist in the land acquisition process.
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