New Delhi, November 11: India has approved plans for a high-capacity power transmission corridor that will carry clean electricity from renewable generation hubs in the west to fast-growing industrial and urban demand centres in the east, according to reporting on the national transmission panel's decision.

Source: OilPrice (Reuters-linked reporting)

The corridor will run at 1,150 kilovolts (kV), making it India's highest-voltage power network, above the 765 kV lines that form most of the current transmission system. The project is estimated to cost about Rs 68,800 crore (about $7.34 billion) and to take roughly six years to build. The approval was given by the national transmission panel, with the official minutes of the meeting released on Tuesday confirming the decision, DataStreet reported.

First phase links Chhattisgarh, Odisha and West Bengal

The first phase of the project will connect Chhattisgarh, Odisha and West Bengal, and will link with a 6,000-megawatt high-voltage transmission system carrying renewable power from Rajasthan's Bhadla solar region, one of India's largest solar complexes. A higher-voltage line can move larger volumes of electricity over long distances using fewer corridors, which reduces the land needed for transmission lines.

The approval comes as India's solar and wind capacity grows faster than the grid built to carry it. Energy think tank Ember estimates cited by OilPrice put clean sources at 27 percent of India's electricity generation last year, with solar alone meeting 9.4 percent of demand. At the same time, grid and storage constraints forced India to curtail large volumes of solar and wind power in September, according to data from JMK Research & Analytics reported last month — power that a stronger west-to-east link is meant to help deliver instead of waste.

1,150 kVVoltage of the approved corridor, India's highest
Rs 68,800 croreEstimated project cost (about $7.34 billion)
6 yearsExpected construction timeline
6,000 MWLinked high-voltage system carrying Bhadla solar power

India is targeting 500 gigawatts (GW) of non-fossil-fuel power capacity by 2030 and has crossed the 300 GW milestone, New and Renewable Energy Minister Pralhad Joshi said in August, according to OilPrice. With construction spread over about six years, the corridor's first-phase links between Chhattisgarh, Odisha and West Bengal will be watched as a test of whether transmission building can keep pace with the renewable capacity being added in the west.