Powergrid defers construction of bays for 2 projects

The Talcher-II and North Karanpura transmission projects habe been deferred due to the ambiguity in the commissioning schedules.

Both companies awarded with the projects--Reliance Power Transmission`s arms - North Karanpura Transmission Company Limited and Talcher-II Transmission Company Limited--have sought the shifting of the zero dates and an extension of the overall commissioning schedule for these two transmission projects, along with higher tariffs.

In light of the uncertainty in commissioning schedules of the proposed schemes, the Central Electricity Authority has been forced to direct Power Grid Corporation of India Limited to defer the construction of bays and reactors associated with these projects, until a concrete decision is taken on the matter.

The power evacuation for the Talcher-II project, which is aimed at providing back-up in case of outage of the Talcher-Kolar HVDC link, is likely to be severely impacted as a result of this move. The Talcher-Kolar bipole line was initially built to evacuate power from the 2,000 MW Talcher-II super thermal power station to its southern region beneficiaries.

Concerned with the ambiguity regarding commissioning of the North Karanpura transmission project, Central Electric Authority has claimed that PGCIL will face tough times ahead for evacuation of power from this proposed scheme. The unresolved issue has already hampered the development of the project to a large extent.