State governments have been asked to expedite the renewable energy capacity addition for the 12th Plan (2012-2017) to ensure optimal utilisation of the transmission infrastructure under Green Energy Corridor.
This was said at a meeting chaired by the Power Secretary Pradeep Kumar Pujari, and attended by State government officials, in August. The meeting was also attended by officials of private sector companies such as Adani Power, Adani Transmission, Sterlite Grid, and Reliance Power Transmission. The minutes of the meeting were made public on Tuesday.
Green Energy Corridors will come up under two categories. Corridor-I includes transmission systems at the intra-State level, which envisages an investment of ₹13,946 crore as well as an inter-State transmission system, which will have an investment of ₹15,074 crore.
Corridor-II will be to provide transmission infrastructure for the ultra mega solar power parks. Of these, transmission infrastructure for the 1,500 MW NP Kunta Solar Park in Andhra Pradesh is under implementation, while tendering for the Rewa Solar Park and Karnataka Solar Park is under process.
It was also decided at the meeting that State governments will ask renewable energy developers to set up projects close to the six pooling stations under Corridor-I.
While expressing worries about the underutilisation of the transmission infrastructure, it was decided at the meeting to keep building the infrastructure to ensure renewable energy integration can happen as and when the projects come up.