In its recent National Electricity Plan (Vol.II - Transmission), the Central Electricity Authority (CEA) speaks of a rather unique project proposal – a 1,150 km under-sea power cable linking Port Blair in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Paradip, Odisha. Phase-I of the project is estimated to cost ₹31,000 crore. 

“It is planned to connect Andaman & Nicobar Islands with mainland of the country through HVDC under-sea cables. The ±320 kV, 250 MW HVDC (VSC based) interconnection of 1,150 km through under-sea cable (capacity of cable: 500 MW) will be first of its kind in the country connecting Port Blair, Andaman, to Paradip, Odisha,” says the CEA document. 

The project will take five years to do. In Phase-II, another 250 MW HVDC terminal would be added at both, and a cable is to be laid between Port Blair and Nicobar Islands. 

The project is an idea that makes one wonder “whatever for”, because the demand for electricity in the Bay of Bengal islands is less than 100 MW today. Nor has it ever been said that the A&N islands could generate huge volumes of power that could be wheeled to the mainland. 

Geopolitics

The project therefore has a strong smell of geopolitics. A power transmission expert that businessline spoke to, who requested not to be named, mentioned two points as the basis of the project. 

One, India is building a large deep draft (20 meters) International Container Transshipment Port at Galathea Bay, on Great Nicobar Island, with an investment of $ 5 billion.  The port is an opportunity for India to keep its influence over a critical shipping route.

Second, the idea is perhaps to go further, from Nicobar Islands to Singapore. The Paradeep – Andamans link project was likely conceived against the backdrop of the collapse (but since revived) of the Sun Cable project—an ambitious project to build a 4,300-km undersea power transmission line between Australia and Singapore—for distribution in the ASEAN countries. In January 2023, it was reported that the project “collapsed under its own weight”. The distance between Great Nicobar and Singapore is only around 1,700 km. Can India step in to supply energy to ASEAN? (However, just last week Reutersreported that Singapore approved import of solar energy from Australia via undersea cable. 

Linking the A&N islands to Singapore also ties-in well with the India-sponsored ‘one sun, one world, one grid’ (OSOWOG) initiative, which seeks to build a multi-country grid so that solar energy could be transmitted any time from regions where the sun is shining to regions where it is not. 

The CEA document mentions this. “Under OSOWOG initiative, interconnection of Indian Electricity Grid with Singapore, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Maldives, etc. are under discussion,” it says. 

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