Southern Grid to Get Additional 4,000 MW Power

Nellore: The southern grid will get an additional 4,000 MW of power in the next one year to mitigate the woes of electricity-deficit states, Union Power Minister Piyush Goyal said here on Saturday.

Power transmission capacity to the southern grid has been improved by 71 per cent in the last 18 months, thereby enabling transmission of more power from the North, Goyal said. Earlier, the Minister dedicated the 1600-MW super critical mega Damodaram Sanjeevaiah Thermal Power Station of the Andhra Pradesh Power Generation Corporation at Krishnapatnam, 20-km from here. By 2020, an additional 18,000 MW of power would be made available to the southern grid, he said.
According to Goyal, the Centre was working on a new policy to ensure adequate coal linkage to thermal power projects. Thermal plants have been forced to import coal at higher prices but now we will ensure linkages to cheaper domestic coal. This will eliminate need to import coal, said Goyal, who also holds the coal portfolio.
He said all agricultural pump sets would be replaced in the next three years with solar pump sets. This will bring in revolutionary saving for farmers, he added.
Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu, Union Ministers M Venkaiah Naidu, Prakash Javadekar, Y S Chowdary, state ministers and others attended the event.

Source: PTI