CHENNAI: Tangedco harnessed 13,000 million units of wind energy and 2,905 million units of solar energy in 2017-18. Tamil Nadu is the only state to have used so much of green energy last year. The state has saved not less than 5,406 million tonnes of carbon on this count.
“In the green energy initiative, Tamil Nadu is a leader among all states. It had installed capacity of 11,113 MW as on March 31, 2018, compared to 10,480 MW at the end of the previous financial year,” said state electricity minister P Thangamani in the assembly on Tuesday.
In the coming months too, the government will increase the share of clean energy through various initiatives, he said.
On July 27, 2017, Tangedco harnessed wind energy to the extent of 5,095MW. “In 2017-18, it was proposed to add wind power capacity to the extent of 4,500MW. Work is still going on. Apart from Tangedco floating tenders on its own to increase the wind power capacity, Power Grid Corporation of India will add 800MW of wind power in Tamil Nadu,” said a senior Tangedco official. This year, the maximum wind energy harnessed in a day is 4,200MW.
The discom, by using green power, has lowered its purchase expenditure. “Due to lowering of power purchase tariff, the discom’s loss for 2017-18 has come down to Rs 2,975 crore. We are working towards a break even by this year end,” said the official.
The discom has also increased the number of sub-stations. Old transformers across the state are being changed. “In Chennai alone, 26 sub-stations have been upgraded or set up newly. This will improve power quality in several areas,” the official said.
In Sholinganallur and Manali, 400 kV substations have been commissioned and work is under progress for commissioning 400 kV Guindy sub-station and tender is under scrutiny for Korattur 400kV sub-station.
To reduce the time of supply interruption in Chennai and suburban areas, the discom has proposed to replace 17,535 distribution transformers at an estimated cost of Rs 1,750 crore. This will be funded by the Rural Electricity Corporation.
Similarly 38,844 pillar boxes in Chennai city will be replaced by high rupturing capacity 6-way pillar boxes. The work is expected to be over in 2019-20.
Also, overhead lines will be replaced with underground cables in all parts of Chennai Corporation at a cost of Rs 2,549 crore. A total of 33,307.81km of low tension overhead lines and 2004,89 km of high tension overhead lines will be taken out.
Source: timesofindia.indiatimes
