Mumbai's power woes to end with new transmission line set for commissioning

With an investment of Rs 8,900 cr, Mumbai's electricity supply to get a boost with new transmission lines

The electricity supply woes of Mumbai are set to get over with a new transmission line to connect the national grid with the metropolis, getting commissioned by the year end. The transmission line from Kharghar to Vikhroli costing Rs 1,900 crore will be commissioned by the year-end, while the Aarey to Kudus line transmission project, with an investment of Rs 7,000 crore, getting ready by FY26. With this, the metropolis will get additional lines to connect to the national grid thereby getting access to high quality, cheaper electricity, said state government officials.

“The land for both projects has been acquired and detailed design and engineering work has been completed. The permissions required for the right of way (RoW) have been received and the project is in an advanced stage of completion,” said a Maharashtra government official. Both projects will supply an additional 2,000 MW of electricity to Mumbai which is facing acute scarcity due to a 30 per cent rise in demand due to the early summer, the official said. Of the two projects, the Kharghar-Vikhroli project will bring in 1,000 MW of electricity by this year-end and will be able to meet the immediate demand supply gap, the official said.

Last week, Mumbai's power demand hovered at around 3,750 MW and state government officials expect demand to touch 4,200 MW due to the ongoing heat wave.

The Rs 7,000 crore Aarey to Kudus project is mired in litigation in the Supreme Court after Tata Power, one of electricity suppliers to the city, moved the top court last month against the state government’s plan to award the project to Adani Electricity (earlier known as Reliance Energy).

In 2013, the Maharashtra Electricity Regulatory Commission had given its green signal to the Aarey-Kudus project. But the project stalled till 2018 after the State Transmission Utility (STU), the nodal agency for transmission projects within the state, decided to change the scope of the project. After taking over Mumbai's suburban power distribution business from the Anil Ambani group, Adani Electricity revived the project awarded to REL and secured the licence from the MERC in March last year.

However, Tata Power opposed MERC's proposal to grant the licence saying the project should be awarded through competitive bidding. MERC rejected Tata Power's contention. Tata Power then moved the Appellate Tribunal for Electricity (APTEL) which upheld the MERC's decision in February this year. Tata Power has now moved the Supreme Court against APTEL's  order and the matter is currently pending.

In June 2010, MERC appointed a committee to look into the reasons behind the grid failure in Mumbai and suggest measures to avoid outages. The committee said the city's own power generation capacity, which includes 1,430 MW Trombay power plant of Tata Power and 500 MW power plant of Adani Electricity (then Reliance Energy) at Dahanu, is not sufficient to cater to the city's rising demand. Mumbai was also importing an additional 1,500 MW of power through existing transmission lines of the state government.

The committee identified the need for raising the city's transmission capacity as the demand was to cross 4.000 MW by 2014-15. To meet this additional demand, the MERC identified Kharghar-Vikhroli 400 kV Scheme and 1000 MW Aarey Kudus HVDC Scheme to help Mumbai to meet the scarcity. While the Aarey Kudus project was awarded to Reliance Energy, the Kharghar-Vikhroli was awarded to Tata Power.

After no progress was made on the Kharghar-Vikhroli project till 2018, the MERC withdrew the project from Tata Power and awarded the project through competitive bidding to Adani Transmission in 2019. Tata Power moved the Supreme Court over the MERC's decision to cancel the project but the SC decided in favour of the state government. The land was finally handed over to ATL after last year’s grid failure on October 12th.

Tata Power, which supplies electricity to the island city, says it is taking several steps to cater to its consumers. Tata Power has a diverse generation portfolio with a mix of thermal, gas, hydro, solar and wind. Tata Power Mumbai Distribution’s contracted capacities are: Hydro - 218 MW, Thermal & Gas – 482 MW, RE (Wind & Solar)– 385 MW. ‘’Apart from this, any momentary shortages are met by energy markets and the demand will be met through contracted capacity & short term power purchase if required,” it said in a statement.

When contacted, a Adani Electricity spokesperson said: "Electricity consumption is at its peak as everyone tries to beat the unprecedented summer heat. While our teams work day and night to meet the rising electricity demand, the same comes at a cost.”’ Both companies appealed to the customers to consume electricity judiciously.