Tamil Nadu seeks private investment for wind infrastructure

The state government of Tamil Nadu has sought the help of private players to set up infrastructure for wind power evacuation.

The government is looking at setting up 230Kv to 400Kv substations to carry the power from generation points to distribution centres.

State power minister Natham R Viswanathan, said that the state’s wind generation capacity was 6,067 Mw. Of this, nearly 300Mw is not used due to evacuation problems.

To strengthen the grid that carries electricity generated from wind, the government is planning to set up sub-stations and transmission lines at a cost of Rs 3,000 crore. “We have private players in generation. Now we are planning to involve them in transmission and distribution too,” he said.

The power demand in the state was growing at 7 per cent, but there was no proportional growth in the generation sector. The installed capacity is 10,237 Mw and generation is 8,000 Mw. The demand is 10,500 Mw. “Our government has formulated short, interim and long term plans to solve the power crisis in the state,” said Viswanathan.