The National Committee on Transmission (NCT), in its recent meeting, has directed the Union ministry of new & renewable energy (MNRE) to conduct further studies to assess the feasibility of putting up evacuation infrastructure for 60 GW of RE power in Rajasthan.
This 60 GW of RE capacity in Rajasthan has been envisaged in the MoU signed between the Government of Rajasthan and the Government of UAE on October 22, 2024. This MoU, in turn, is a follow-up to the MoU signed between MNRE and the UAE government on January 9, 2024, aimed at UAE’s investment in building RE capacity in India.
State transmission utility Rajasthan Rajya Vidyut Prasaran Nigam Ltd (RVPN) has communicated to MNRE that the 60 GW of RE capacity envisaged in MoU cannot be consumed within the state through the intrastate (InSTS) network. RVPN has therefore requested that the necessary transmission network should be planned on the interstate transmission system (ISTS) side.
Now, Central Electricity Authority (CEA) said that since the locations of the RE power plants corresponding to the 60 GW envisaged have not been mentioned, it would be difficult to plan the network. Further, as evacuation of this capacity would be ideally done using HVDC technology, identification of the landing points can be done only when project locations are finalized.
Meanwhile, it is learnt that a total of 36 GW of RE capacity (outside of the 60 MW under the MoU) would be integrated with Rajasthan’s intrastate grid. Of this, connectivity for 24 GW has already been granted. CEA has suggested that integrating the remaining 12 GW could be done along with the evacuation infrastructure envisaged under the 60 GW MoU.
NCT has now asked MNRE to further examine the feasibility and technicalities of the 60 GW RE generation capacity and submit its inputs so as to determine the future course of action.
HVDC versus BESS
In a development related to RE evacuation from Rajasthan, NCT has appointed RECPDCL as the bid process coordinator for a major HVDC scheme to evacuate solar energy from the Barmer complex in Rajasthan. The option of using BESS was earlier being evaluated. (Read full T&D India story dated July 4, 2025)
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