Though substation capacity addition in FY21 as a whole fell short of the target, the performance in the month of March 2021 was interesting to observe.
As discussed in a recent exclusive study by T&D India, the country’s total transformation capacity addition through substations of 220kV or more was 57,575 MVA in FY21. This was 16 per cent than the achievement of FY20. Further capacity addition in FY21 could meet the planned target, only to the extent of 83.4 per cent. (See full story)
What is interesting to observe is that in March 2021 alone, as much as 17,750 MVA of substation capacity was added. To put this in perspective, nearly 31 per cent of the total capacity added in FY21 came in just one month. To put it differently, 31 per cent of the achievement came in around 8 per cent of the time.
This superlative performance in March 2021 was responsible for the overall respectable performance for the whole of FY21. In the first three quarters of FY21 (April 2020 to December 2020), the substation capacity addition programme was seen badly faltering. It was then feared that FY21 would close with a target achievement of barely 50-60 per cent.
Returning to the performance in March 2021, the conspicuous feature was the vigor shown by state power transmission utilities. This ownership category added as much as 9,385 MVA in March 2021. This was more than half of the total addition across all ownership groups in the month. Further, state utilities achieved 30 per cent of their FY21 addition in March 2021 alone.
March 2021 was also significant in that the entire HVDC-based transformation capacity commissioned in FY21 came in March 2021. The month (and therefore the year) saw 4,000 MVA of HVDC substations, all coming from Power Grid Corporation of India. Of this, 3,000 MVA was from the 800kV class while 1,000 MVA came from the 320kV regime—a voltage class that made its debut in India.
(Featured photograph shows an HVDC converter hall, for illustration only)
