Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala, and Andhra Pradesh and the Union Territory of Puducherry will now have better electricity supply, as the region is being synchronised with the national transmission network of electricity (commonly known as National Electricity Grid).
The development, which took place on Tuesday, nearly five months ahead of the targeted schedule of May 2014, means that electricity can now flow seamlessly across regions, according to the demand and supply matrix.
“Synchronous integration of the Southern grid with rest of the national grid shall not only augment the inter-regional power transfer capacity of Southern region but also relieve the congestion being experienced in a few transmission corridors. This would be a boost for further economic growth of the country. It is likely to take a few months before power flow over this line is stabilised,” the Power Ministry said in a statement on Wednesday.
The country is divided into five regional electricity grids – Northern, Eastern, Western, North-Eastern and Southern.
Till now, the four grids (excepting Southern) were operating in a synchronous mode.
Since the Southern region was not connected, States in the region faced problems in importing electricity from the rest of the country. Also, they could not supply power to States outside the Southern grid, whenever there was excess supply.
The integration of grids has been achieved after the commissioning of the Raichur-Solapur 765 kV single circuit transmission line by Power Grid Corporation of India Ltd (PGCIL).
This line of 208 circuit kilometers (ckm) and 765-400 kV substations at Raichur and Sholapur has been commissioned five months ahead of its contractual schedule at a cost of approximately Rs 815 crore, the Ministry said.
With this interconnection, the Indian power system has entered a new era and has become one of the largest operating synchronous grids in the world with about 2,32,000 MW of installed power generation capacity, the Ministry said.