By Business India Editorial

Uttar Pradesh will create a 2,600-km-long transmission network worth more than Rs5,000 crore to evacuate the upcoming solar power from the ultra-mega solar parks in Bundelkhand and other regions and inject the same into the grid, officials said.

Green energy corridors are being set up in the country in two phases, with the second phase of the transmission corridor to supply 20 gigawatt (GW) renewable energy to the national grid. This would be supplied from Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh. UP had no projects under the Green Energy Corridor-I.

“We will set up 27 substations of total 15,280 MVA capacity connected to 2,632 km-long transmission circuit (lines) in two phases. The execution period of the first and the major phase will be the financial year 2022-2023 to 2024-2025 while the second phase will begin in 2023-24 and end in 2025-26,” said P Guru Prasad, managing director of UP Transmission Corporation Ltd.

The detailed project report cost of the scheme, according to him, is Rs5,011.47 crore and the Centre approved the DPR in January this year.

“The scheme has central financial assistance as capital grant (33 per cent) and 20 percent is from the state government while the rest of the amount (47 per cent) will be borrowed from the KFW, a German bank under Indo-German Cooperation,” he said. “A loan agreement with the KFW was already signed in December, 2021.”

The Central government had given UP an ambitious target of generating 10,700 MW of green energy by 2022 – a deadline that is expected to be revised soon. The work on setting up solar parks of 4000 MW on the barren land in the Bundelkhand region is said to be in full swing with the UPNEDA functioning as a nodal body for the purpose of inviting bids, etc. Ultra-mega plants are also being set up in Allahabad, Mirzapur and Kanpur districts.