New Delhi: Minister for Power and New and Renewable Energy RK Singh chaired a meeting in Jaipur on Thursday to review the progress of the Inter-State Transmission System in the country for the evacuation of power from rapidly growing Renewable Energy (RE) projects in the country. The review meeting focused on the progress of ISTS projects under planning, bidding and under implementation. The minister reviewed the Inter-Sate Transmission plan for RE resource-rich states like Rajasthan, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra.
Referring to India’s commitment to put in place 500 GW of installed electricity generation capacity from non-fossil sources by 2030, Singh stressed that the development of associated transmission infrastructure is key to achieving this target. By 2030, the country’s installed capacity is likely to grow to over 777 GW and the peak demand is slated to reach 335 GW. A comprehensive transmission plan to evacuate 537 GW of RE capacity has been drawn, considering the RE potential in different parts of the country. This report was released by Singh in December 2022.
The bottlenecks being faced in project execution were deliberated in detail and directions to resolve the issues for early completion were issued by the minister. Singh emphasised that the transmission planning shall take into consideration emerging requirements such as offshore wind generation in Tamil Nadu and Gujarat, Green Hydrogen production, and an increase in the conventional generation capacity to meet the growing demand. The inter and intra-state transmission plan for the northeastern states were also reviewed in detail to meet the power demand of this region in 2030 and also to evacuate power from upcoming hydro projects in the region. He directed that the transmission plan shall be dynamic and sensitive to the changing needs of the sector and the development of transmission infrastructure shall be ahead of generation so that there are no evacuation constraints.
The meeting was attended by the Secretary, Ministry of Power, Chairperson, CEA and other key officials from the Central Transmission Utility, POWERGRID, REC, PFC and Ministry of Power.
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