A scheme to augment transformation capacity at the Tuticorin-II GIS Pooling Station in Tamil Nadu has been put on hold.
In its recent meeting, the National Committee on Transmission (NCT) recommended that the scheme be put on hold till further notice from Central Transmission Utility of India Ltd (CTUIL) as the applicant seeking connectivity at the said pooling station were yet to submit their “Connectivity Bank Guarantees.”
The scheme, costing around Rs.101 crore, was assigned to Power Grid Corporation of India Ltd (PGCIL) under the regulated tariff mechanism (RTM) route, and project was envisaged to commission by March 2027.
Officially termed as “”Augmentation of 1x500MVA, 400/230kV ICT (7th) at Tuticorin-II GIS Substation,” the project was approved for implementation in an earlier NCT meeting held in early March this year.
The scheme seeks to honour connectivity additional connectivity application of around 130 MW received from NCL Industries Ltd. This was over and above the 2,500 MW of connectivity already granted at the Tuticorin-II GIS pooling station.
Accordingly, it was decided that a 1×500 MVA, 400/230kV interconnecting transformer (ICT), the seventh at the pooling station, be put up under this scheme. Further, it was decided that the scheme be considered as Associated Transmission System (ATS) of the RE generation project of NLC Industries, seeking connectivity at the Tuticorin-II GIS PS.
Connectivity bank guarantees
As per guidelines, applicants seeking connectivity are required to submit their consent for implementation of ATS transmission schemes, followed by connectivity bank guarantees (towards cost of the ATS) on pro-rata basis of the connectivity quantum.
In case the applicant fails to submit the said bank guarantees, the grant of connectivity is liable to be revoked and augmentation of the Tuticorin-II GIS PS may not be required. In the present case, the applicant still has time to submit consent and bank guarantees. The scheme will be reviewed in due course.
For now, CTUIL has requested PGCIL to put the scheme on hold and NCT, in its latest meeting, took note of the same.
Build-up of Tuticorin-II PS
The Tuticorin-II GIS PS was implemented by PGCIL as part of the Green Energy Corridor-I (GEC-I) project with 2×500 MVA, 400/230kV capacity. Subsequently, three more ICTs of 500MVA, 400/230kV each, were added taking the total number of such ICTs to five. To meet growing connectivity applications, PGCIL is currently putting up the sixth ICT of same capacity, taking the total transformation capacity of the substation to 3,000 MVA. This project is under construction with completion scheduled by December 2025.
Featured photograph (source: Toshiba India) is for representation only