Power Transmission &

Distribution in India

Industry Information Insights 2014

 Table of Contents
Introduction

Regional and National Grid

Market Structure

Evolution of Transmission Sector

T&D Lines Length

Transmission Capacity

Substation Capacity

Distribution System

Competitive Bidding
 Introduction
The huge amount of power generated in a power station is to be transported over a long
distance to load centers to cater power to consumers with the help of transmission line and
transmission towers.

For instance, for a power station generating 120 MW power at 10 kV line to line voltage,
current in the transmission line will be 8660 A. Instead of choosing 10 kV transmission
voltage, if transmission voltage were chosen to be 400 kV, current value in the line would
have been only 261.5 A.

So, the sectional area of the transmission line (copper conductor) will now be much smaller
compared to 10 kV transmission voltage. The cost of conductor will be greatly reduced if
power is transmitted at higher and higher transmission voltage.

The cost of conductor will be greatly reduced if power is transmitted at higher and higher
transmission voltage.
The use of higher voltage (hence lower current in the line) reduces voltage drop in the line
resistance and reactance. Also transmission losses are reduced.

Standard transmission voltages used are 132 kV or 220 kV or 400 kV or 765 kV depending
upon how long the transmission lines are.

After the generator, there is a step up transformer to change the generated voltage (say 10 kV)
to desired transmission voltage (say 400 kV) before transmitting it over a long distance with
the help of transmission lines supported at regular intervals by transmission towers.

While magnitude of current decides the cost of copper, level of voltage decides the cost of
insulators. The idea is, in a spree to reduce the cost of copper one can not indefinitely increase
the level of transmission voltage as cost of insulators will offset the reduction copper cost.
At the load centers voltage level should be brought down at suitable values for supplying
different types of consumers.

Consumers can be categorized as:

• big industries such as steel plants

• medium and small industries
• offices and domestic consumers

Electricity is purchased by different consumers at different voltage level. For example, big
industries may purchase power at 132 kV, medium and big industries purchase power at 33
kV or 11 kV and domestic consumers at rather low voltage of 230 V, single phase.

Thus, 400 kV transmission voltage is to be brought down to different voltage levels before
finally delivering power to different consumers. This is done by step down transformers.
Substations

Substations are the places where the level of voltage undergoes change with the help of
transformers. Apart from transformers a substation houses switches (called circuit breakers),
meters, relays for protection and other control equipment.

A big substation receives power through incoming lines at some voltage (say 400 kV) changes
level of voltage (say to 132 kV) using a transformer and then directs it out wards through
outgoing lines.

At the lowest voltage level of 400 V, generally 3-phase, 4-wire system is adopted for domestic
connections. The fourth wire is called the neutral wire (N) which is taken out from the
common point of the star connected secondary of the 6 kV/400 V distribution transformer.
 Regional and National Grid
Transmission forms a critical link in the power sector value chain. India's power generation
capacities are unevenly dispersed across the country creating an imbalance between the
distribution of power demand and supply centres.

The country has been demarcated into five electrical Regions:

1. Northern (NR)
2. Eastern (ER)
3. Western (WR)
4. Southern (SR)
5. North Eastern (NER)

All the regional grids are synchronously interconnected and operating as single grid known
as Central Grid or National Grid.
 Market Structure
Both central and state governments are responsible for the development of power sector in
India.

POWERGRID is the Central Transmission Utility (CTU) and is responsible for wheeling of
power generated by Central Generating Utilities (CGUs) and inter-state Mega Independent
Power Producers.

Each of the five regions has a Regional Load Despatch Centre (RLDC), which is the apex
body, as per the Electricity Act 2003, to ensure integrated operation of the power system in
the concerned region.

Additionally, there is an apex body at the national level called the National Load Despatch
Centre (NLDC) to ensure integrated power system operation in the country.

The NLDC and RLDCs together form a part of the Power System Operation Corporation
Limited (POSOCO), which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Power Grid Corporation of India
Limited (PGCIL).
Evolution of Transmission Sector
Indian power sector remained closed to private investments till 1991. Power generation was
opened up for private participation in 1991.

The Electricity (Amendment) Act, 1998, defined transmission as a separate activity and led to
the creation of the CTU (currently PGCIL) and STUs.

The Regulatory Commission Act, 1998, mandated the setting up of an independent

regulatory mechanism at the central (CERC) and state level (SERCs).

National Tariff Policy 2006 introduced mandatory Tariff Based Competitive Bidding (TBCB)
for all transmission projects with the objective of promoting competitive procurement of
transmission services, encouraging greater investment by private players in the transmission
sector and increasing transparency & fairness in the process.
 T&D Lines Length
In six years from 2007 to 2013, the power transmission sector registered a growth of
4.37% CAGR.
10,000,000
8,970,112
9,000,000 8,726,092
7,801,098 7,951,486
8,000,000 7,487,977
7,287,413
6,939,529
7,000,000

6,000,000

ckm 5,000,000

4,000,000

3,000,000

2,000,000

1,000,000

0
2006-07 2007-08 2008-09 2009-10 2010-11 2011-12 2012-13
Year
 Transmission Capacity
As on 31 March, 2014, transmission capacity is given in the following table:

Type Central State JV/Private Total (ckm)

500 kV HVDC 5,948 1,504 1,980 9,432
765 KV 9,898 837 361 11,096
400 kV 79,612 36,179 10,166 125,957
220 kV 10,489 133,484 878 144,851
Total 291,336
 Substation Capacity
As on 31 March, 2014, substation capacity is given in the following table:

Type Central State JV/Private Total (MVA)

765 kV 78,000 2,000 3,000 83,000
400 kV 91,775 85,047 630 177,452
220 kV 7,716 247,311 1,567 256,594
500 kV HVDC 9,500 1,500 2,500 13,500
 Distribution System
Power received at a 33 kV substation is first stepped down to 6 kV and with the help of under
ground cables (called feeder lines), power flow is directed to different directions.

At the last level, step down transformers are used to step down the voltage form 6 kV to 400
V. These transformers are called distribution transformers with 400 V, star connected
secondary. Such transformers are generally mounted on poles in cities beside the roads. These
are called pole mounted substations.

From the secondary of these transformers 4 terminals (R, Y, B and N) come out. N is called
the neutral and taken out from the common point of star connected secondary. Voltage
between any two phases (i.e., R-Y, Y-B and B-R) is 400 V and between any phase and neutral
is 230 V.

Residential consumers are supplied with single phase 230 V, 50 Hz. So individual are to be
supplied with any one of the phases and neutral.
Distribution companies try to make sure that the loads remain evenly balanced among the
phases as far as possible. Roughly one-third of the consumers are supplied from R-N, next
one third from Y-N and the remaining one third from B-N.
 Competitive Bidding
The Ministry of Power has mandated that procurement of transmission services in new
projects on the basis of tariff-based competitive bidding.

This is done to encourage private sector participation in the development of electricity

infrastructure and to move towards tariff based competitive regime from the earlier cost-plus
system.

In order to bring in private sector participation, the Ministry of Power has appointed PFC as
Bid Process Coordinator, for two projects and PFCCL (wholly owned subsidiary of PFC) for
nine projects. Out of these eleven projects, four have already been transferred to the
successful bidders and the remaining are under process.

Inter-State Transmission Projects

So far, 8 inter-state transmission projects have been allotted on the basis of competitive
bidding involving an estimated cost of about INR 14,000 crores.
Projects

System strengthening in Northern & Western Regions for import of power from North
Karanpura outside NR & WR and also for power evacuation from projects within WR.

Augmentation of Talcher-II Transmission system

Transmission scheme for enabling import of NER-ER surplus power by NR

Transmission scheme for Krishnapatnam UMPP - Synchronous interconnection between SR

& WR (Part-B)

Transmission Project “System strengthening common for WR & NR”

Transmission Project “System strengthening for WR”

Transmission System associated with IPPs of Nagapattinam/Cuddalore Area – Package - A

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