Team News Riveting
Raipur, October 26
The electricity from Chhattisgarh could now be transmitted upto Kerala as the Power Grid Corporation of India (PGCIL) has put the Raigarh-Pugalur-Thrissur 6,000 MW HVDC Bipole link under commercial operation with effect from October 25, 2021.
State-run PGCIL in September 2020 commissioned the first leg of the 6,000 MW Raigarh-Pugalur high voltage direct current transmission project. PGCIL has commissioned Pole-1 of the Raigarh (Chhattisgarh) to Pugalur (Tamil Nadu) 1,765 Kilometres high voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission system comprising 1,500 MW capacity.
The Rs 5070 crore Pugalur-Thrissur HVDC system is part of the Raigarh-Pugalur-Thrissur 6,000 MW HVDC system and enables transfer of 2,000 MW to Kerala through the HVDC station at Madakkathara in Thrissur.
The Raigarh-Pugalur-Trichur high-voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission project will facilitate the transmission of up to 6GW of electricity between the northern and southern regions of India. It is expected to be one of the world’s biggest multi-terminal HVDC systems to come online. It is also the first HVDC system in India to incorporate the voltage source converter (VSC) technology.
It comprises four 800kV HVDC transmission lines from Raigarh (Chhattisgarh) to Pugalur (Tamil Nadu), traversing around 1,750 km from Chhattisgarh to Tamil Nadu by passing through Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana and a 250km-long 320kV HVDC line from Pugalur to Thrissur (Kerala).
The HVDC line connecting Pugalur to North Trichur in Kerala will have a transfer capacity of 2,000 mw. Because of severe right-of-way constraints in Kerala, the PGCIL opted for VSC technology so that power could ultimately be transferred to Kerala.
There are overhead lines up to the Kerala territory and the PGCIL has laid underground EHV cables within Kerala wherever RoW constraints were encountered. Of the 153 km of total length, underground cables accounted for some 27 km (all in Kerala).
