India and Maldives have proposed to set up an interconnection for the transmission of renewable energy.
The proposal was the outcome of a meeting between India’s power minister R. K. Singh and Ms Aminath Shauna, Minister of Environment, Climate Change & Technology, Republic of Maldives, on April 26, 2022. (see photograph)
During the meeting, both leaders proposed two memoranda of understanding — one on energy cooperation and another on transmission interconnection under One Sun, One World, One Grid (OSOWOG).
To facilitate Maldives’ energy transition programme, India and Maldives have proposed to establish transmission interconnection for renewable power transfer as part of the OSOWOG initiative.
A draft agreement is being prepared for MoU on transmission interconnection under which a technical team from India would visit Maldives to assess its technical feasibility. Thereafter a detailed project report (DPR) would be prepared jointly with Indian and Maldives agencies including undersea cable route survey and network augmentation in capital city Male. (see map alongside)
Energy profile of Maldives
The island nation of Maldives has no land-based mineral resources. Due to this, the nation is heavily dependent on imported diesel. Independent DG sets largely form the country’s power generation infrastructure, through isolated island-based grids. Despite government subsidies, electricity tariffs in Maldives are amongst the highest in South Asia.
The Asian Development Bank (a World Bank group entity) has said that private sector investment in renewable energy is the key for Maldives to achieve self-sufficiency in electrical energy. On its part, Maldives has set of goal of ramping up the share of renewable energy, in the country’s total energy mix, to 70 per cent by 2030.
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According to some reports, Maldives received encouraging response from international bidders to its recent proposal of setting up grid-scale solar PV systems on select islands.
