Southern States explore feasibility of increased reverse power flow capacity

To ensure enough power is available to meet the future demand of their States, Southern Regional Power Committee (SRPC) is looking at the feasibility to enhance reverse power flow capacity.

When power is flowing from the lower voltage side of the transformer to the higher voltage side — going from bottom to top — then it is termed as reverse power flow.

At the recently held meeting of the Southern Regional Power Committee, it was decided to carry out a preliminary study to check the feasibility of enhancement of reverse power flow capacity beyond 3,000 MW and its implementation including changes in the existing software and equipment. This is based on an earlier recommendation made by the Technical Co-ordination Sub-Committee (TCC) of SRPC which had suggested that Power Grid Corporation of India (PGCIL) to jointly do a study with an OEM player — Hitachi Energy India — for enhancement of capacity of Raigarh-Pugalur HVDC system from 3,000 MW to 6,000 MW. The report has to be submitted in a month’s time.

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The meeting was convened by PGCIL to discuss details regarding the reverse power flow capacity of Raigarh-Pugalur High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) system including the design of HVDC system, criteria of fixing 3,000 MW in reverse direction and other issues as these may have significant commercial implication on the Southern Region States.

The Chairman of Southern Regional Power Committee, K Vijayanand, opined that even though the Raigarh-Pugalur-Trichur (RPT) HVDC transmission system was planned and approved for the import mode only, the system has come up with 50 per cent capacity export mode (3,000 MW) due to its inherent design, which creates an opportunity to utilise the existing 400 KV Raigarh-Pugalur HVDC in Reverse Mode for full capacity of 6,000 MW (existing utilisation is 3000 MW) instead of going for an additional transmission system.

The Southern Regional Power Committee meeting was held on Friday in Hyderabad. It was chaired by K Vijayanand, Chairperson of SRPC representing Andhra Pradesh, R.K. Tyagi, Chairman and Managing Director (POWERGRID) and representatives from member States of Telangana, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry.

The Inter State Transmission System ± 800 kV, 6,000 MW HVDC Raigarh-Pugalur link was proposed for import of power into Southern Region to meet the deficit of power in the Region and was taken into service from September 2020. It was currently operating in Forward Mode (Western Region to Southern Region) 6,000 MW power flow and Reverse Mode (Southern Region to Western Region) 3,000 MW power flow.