Kalwa-Salsette to get a new electricity transmission line, says Tata Power

The Tata Power, on Wednesday finally uprated the existing transmission line between Kalwa (belonging to MSETCL) and Salsette (belonging to Tata Power). For long, Mid-day has been highlighting the lack of capacity that prevents power companies from getting more electricity to Mumbai, in case of increase in demand.

During summers, during peak hours demand surpasses 3,500 MW, although there is sufficient capacity to haul electricity from other states at this time. The entire stretch is 8 km wherein they have replaced the existing conductor with high capacity ones. Last year, there was load shedding in Mumbai for a couple of days as one of the Tata Power's plants experienced technical faults and the power distributors could not manage to procure more electricity into Mumbai due to constraint in the transmission line.

The acute shortage of power has compelled power to be imported from outside the city. In the first phase, additional interconnecting line no. 6 was commissioned as a short term measure in November 2013. In the second phase now, existing Kalwa-Salsette line no. 3 has been upgraded. Tata Power also plans to take up upgrading of Kalwa-Salsette line No. 4 in the third phase at an opportune time.

The Company's transmission network comprises 1,171 circuit kilometre of 220kV lines and 21 receiving stations spread across Mumbai. The transmission system is the link between the generating stations and the distribution companies for transmitting power. It is also the corridor for bringing in power outside of Mumbai.

Ashok Sethi, COO and Executive Director, Tata Power said, "The uprating of existing transmission line was taken up as an emergency work." The uprating project was carried out terrains involving multiple road crossings, creeks, live 22kV feeder crossings, Eastern Express Highway and Central Railway.