ABB has secured an order worth more than Rs 4,000 crore from Power Grid Corporation of India Ltd for an ultra high-voltage direct current (UHVDC) transmission system to supply hydro power from the mountainous North-East region to Agra region which is 1,700 kilometres away.

ABB will book over Rs 500 crore of the total order value for local equipment supplies and will additionally contribute to the project with design and engineering services.

The UHVDC link, operating at 800 kilovolts (kV), will have a converter capacity of 8,000 megawatts (MW), the highest-ever built. It will be the world’s first multi-terminal ultrahigh-voltage link and will have three converter stations.

Two “sending’’ stations will convert power from alternating current (AC) to DC for transmission over a single power line and deliver electricity to a third, “receiving’’ station in Agra where it will be converted back into AC for distribution to end-users.

The power link will pass through the “chicken neck area’’; a very narrow patch of land (22 km wide x 18 km long) in West Bengal bordering Nepal and Bangladesh. Ultrahigh-voltage transmission helped to minimise losses and improve efficiency, the company said in a filing with the stock exchanges.

ABB will execute the North-East Agra transmission project together with Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd, which will deliver the remainder of the project. The total project is worth about Rs 5,000 crore and will be executed on a turnkey basis including design, system engineering, supply, installation and commissioning. It is scheduled to go into operation in 2015.

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