Achi news desk-
Uttar Pradesh Power Transmission Corporation Ltd (UPPTCL), a government-owned transmission utility, will now upgrade its network across the state to handle increasing power demand that is projected to peak at 43,778 MW by 2028 -29.
The UP Electricity Regulatory Commission (UPERC) has approved the five-year plan of the state transmission utility (STU) which seeks to increase the transmission capacity in the state from the financial year 2024-25 to 2028-29.
With a view to handling the upcoming transmission demand and production, the utility had submitted a plan to the UPERC, seeking to add 102 new substations with a transformation capacity of 66,490 MVA and lay 7529 km of lines transmission during 2024-25 and 2028-29.
“The commission has approved the plan through its order published on March 3, but with some conditions,” said a senior official in the energy department.
The commission in its order passed by chairman Arvind Kumar and members VK Srivastava and Sanjay Kumar Singh asked the petitioner (STU) to ensure compliance with the work plan / timelines submitted for relieving overloading of transmission lines, transformers , substations of 220 kv and above by May 31, 2024.
It can be noted that any power produced in power plants is cleared through the transmission network before it reaches the distribution network and from there to the user’s end. Very often people face load shedding due to the inadequacy of the transmission infrastructure to carry electricity up to the distribution chain.
The commission directed the petitioner to submit the list of 132 transformers and lines after reaching 75% and more loading on July 24, 2023 at 21.33 hours (when the peak demand was recorded that year) within 15 day from the date of issue. of this order along with work plan/time lines for relieving the same.
The petitioner was also asked to submit the discom-wise list of 33 kv outlets which are not yet connected to the distribution system.
“A total addition of 4831 reactors intended to be installed at 765 kv and 400 kv voltage levels from 2024-25-2028-29 as submitted by the petitioner will be an integral part of the STU transmission plan,” the regulator ruled.
He said that in future the petitioner will include in the transmission plan a demand estimate for reactive power requirement for a period of five periods along with the STU work plan/timeline for achieving the same and ensuring that there is enough land available to expand the network in the future. .
When approving the plan the commission considered its own projections regarding future demand in the state rather than following the Central Electricity Authority’s (CEA) forecast which it said was on the lower side and less practical as the seen last year.
The UPERC has predicted that the peak power demand in UP will be 31,590 MW in 2024-25, 34,434 MW in 2025-26, 37,533 MW in 2026-27, 40,535 MW in 2027-28 and 72-43, 70-29 .
“The commission had predicted that the peak demand in UP would be 28,982 MW in 2023-24 and the forecast happened to be true on the whole while the CEA had predicted that the demand would be only 27,531 MW during the same year,” said a UPERC official.
