Transmission & Distribution

As thejas had already posted the details of installed power capacity and additions, I would like to talk about transmission and distribution.

Unification of regional grids has been envisioned by engineers from long time. The idea has come to lime light only few years back i.e, Indian Government initiated activities recently. Integrated National grid shall evacuate additional 1, 00,000 MW by the year 2012 and carry 60% of the power generated in the country. The existing inter-regional power transfer capacity is 9,000 MW, which is to be further enhanced to 30,000 MW by 2012 through creation of “Transmission Super Highways”. For creation of such a grid, an investment of Rs. 71,000 Crore is envisaged. Out of this, Rs. 50,000 Crore is planned to be mobilised by POWERGRID and remaining Rs. 21000 Crore is envisaged through private sector participation.

The T & D losses have been consistently on the higher side, and are presently in the range of 18% to 62% in various states. The aggregate technical & commercial (AT&C) losses are in the range of 50% (half of the power goes waste!!). Unplanned extensions of the distribution lines, overloading of the system elements shot back in terms of huge losses. All these problems had to be foreseen and proper investments if made earlier wouldn’t have resulted in this bad scenario. The commercial losses are mainly due to low metering efficiency, theft.

Coming to transmission, The Government of India has an ambitious mission of ‘POWER FOR ALL BY 2012’. To be able to reach this power to the entire country an expansion of the regional transmission network and inter regional capacity to transmit power would be essential. The latter is required because resources are unevenly distributed in the country and power needs to be carried great distances to areas where load centres exist.

http://powermin.nic.in/ would give you more details.