The advisory group on the power sector, chaired by Union minister Jyotiraditya Scindia, has suggested the formation of a National Power Beltway (NPB) comprising a large number of high-capacity, national, regional and state transmission corridors connecting load centres and generating stations.
The group, which met yesterday, said NPB would enable a nationwide plug-and-play flexibility to generators and consumers and it would continue to be developed over 25-30 years.
A group member told Business Standard: “NPB will reduce instances of transmission congestion, remove uncertainty of where to build a transmission line and who will pay for that, and will provide a high degree of assurance to states in meeting their import and export requirements and planning their intra-state network. ”
NPB can become a backbone for the Southeast Asian grid and connect generation locations in energy resource-rich West Asia, Central Asia, India and China to load centres to ensure energy security. “This can serve as a sources of forex income for India,” said the group member.
The establishment of NPB was considered at a time when over 100,000 circuit km of high capacity network is already in operation, while 40 circuit km is under construction during the 12th Plan with an estimated investment of Rs 1 lakh crore.
However, he admitted that the current Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC) regulations will have to be refined to allow plug and play feature to operate seamlessly. Further, certain benefits available to public sector undertakings under electricity and forest acts will have to be extended to private developers under tariff-based competitive bidding.
Moreover, the current transmission market design needs to be fine-tuned to enable a level-playing field to sync it with the concept of the NPB.
The advisory group also discussed how the developers selected via competitive bidding regime can be provided relief during the implementation of transmission projects. “All transmission projects may be given the status of central sector projects irrespective of their ownership and it will be suitable notified at appropriate place to ensure a level playing field for private players. Further, payment of transmission charges will be given priority over all other charges and benefits of tripartite agreement will have to be extended beyond 2016.”
