India’s interregional transfer capacity has crossed 1,00,000 mw, according to information tabled in Parliament.
Replying to a question in the Lok Sabha, Union Power Minister R.K. Singh, stated the country’s interregional transfer capacity currently stands at 1.05 lakh mw, or 105 GW.
This transfer capacity comes from the five regional grids – northern region (NR), western (WR), southern (SR), eastern (ER) and northeastern (NER). These five regional grids are being interconnected through high-capacity HVDC as well as 765kV/400kV AC links. The integration of these regional grids has resulted in the formation of “One Nation – One Grid – One Frequency” with a total transfer capacity of 1.05 lakh mw.
Development of the National Grid (the unification of the five aforementioned regional grids) has been undertaken on priority basis for optimum utilization of unevenly distributed resources as well as to facilitate power transfer from surplus to deficit regions across the country.
Power Supply Position
The power minister also stated that there was currently no deficit of power generation capacity in the country. The country’s total installed power generation capacity today stands at 384 GW (1 GW = 1,000 mw) while the peak demand so far has been around 200 GW.
During the first quarter (April to June, or Q1) of the current fiscal year FY22, India’s peak power demand was 1,93,850 mw. Incidentally, this was reached in June. As against this, the peak demand met was 1,91,514 mw. This resulted in unmet peak demand of 2,336 mw, resulting in a peak demand deficit of 1.2 per cent.
In Q1 of FY22, the western, southern and eastern regions did not face any peak demand deficit. The northern region faced a peak demand deficit of 3.3 per cent, while the same metric for the northeastern region was 0.2 per cent.
At the state level, Maharashtra recorded the highest peak demand of 25,653 mw in Q1 of FY22 with Uttar Pradesh coming second with 24,674 mw. In both the cases, it may be mentioned, the peak demand was fully met.
Power Exchanges
The Union power minister also stated that the government was promoting competition through power exchanges. Most of the time, there is one rate for the power traded in the power exchanges for all the buyers in the country. “Various measures have been taken to enhance share of electricity sold through electricity exchanges,” the minister’s written reply noted.
Featured photograph (source: Siemens) showing an HVDC converter hall is for illustration only
