Power Grid Corporation of India Ltd today said that the country will have a single frequency across the country by early 2014 with the commissioning of a new line that strengthens and interlinks North and South network.

The Chairman and Managing Director of PowerGrid, R.N. Nayak, said that the southern grid is not interlinked with the national grid and requires manual management.

With commissioning of Raichur to Solapur transmission line by January 2014, we will have a totally synchronous grid across the country. This will enable the entire country to have one frequency and the power transmission will be seamless between various regions including South.

The Power Minister, V.M. Moily, laid the foundation stone for the project here today.

Speaking after the foundation laying ceremony here at Raichur, Nayak said that within 15 months the country will have one frequency. The southern region now has to be manually managed. And, there are also limitations in terms of evacuation of power to the South.

With the commissioning of this line and 765 kva substation here in Raichur, it wiil enable better management of power supplies between regions across the country.

PowerGrid with one lakh km transmission lines is the third largest network for power supply in the world. The southern region has 27,000 circuit km and handles 35 per cent of power supplied in the southern region.

The corporation has developed a smart grid technology solutions which uses power efficiently without losses.

The Raichur-Solapur line is being set up with an outlay of Rs 1,930 crore and is expected to be ready by December 2013 for synchronisation with the national grid by January 2014.

During the XII Plan, PowerGrid plans to invest about Rs 1,00,000 crore and adding about 7240 gigawatt circuit km during 2012-13 and 20,000 mva transformation capacity.

This project when commissioned will establish a reliable and resourceful infrastructure for import of power from new grid to southern region during the peak demand as well as export of surplus power from the southern region during off-peak demand period.

rishikumar.vundi@thehindu.co.in