Power Grid is holding discussions with Oman, Saudi Arabia and the UAE for interconnection projects. It has a ’pulling station’ near the Arabian Sea in Gujarat’s Bhuj, which will be connected with a similar station on the shores of a Middle East country.

Aug 5, 2024

State-owned Power Grid is holding discussions with the Middle Eastern countries to invest up to INR 40,000 in undersea interconnection projects.

The central PSU has a ’pulling station’ near the Arabian Sea in Gujarat’s Bhuj, which would be connected with a similar station on the shores of the Middle East country as well, said Mr. R.K. Tyagi, Chairman and Managing Director of Power Grid.

He said a high voltage direct current cable would go from the seabed with a capacity of up to 2,500 MW. The project would entail an investment between INR 35,000-40,000 crore and take up to six years to complete.

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Mr. Tyagi said Power Grid was planning to invest INR 18,000 crore this fiscal year, which would help accelerate the growth rate going forward. A bulk 80-85 percent of this amount would be spent on core transmission lines business. Over 80 percent of the new work would revolve around renewable energy, he added.

According to the Power Grid MD, as the projects become older, the earnings from transmission projects go down and the company has to keep commissioning new projects to have higher revenue growths.

He said the company won six out of 10 transmission projects till July. Bids for three projects that were won in the June quarter alone had levelised tariff of INR 4,172 crore.

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The country’s leading electric power transmission company was diversifying into other areas as well, including smart meters, data centres, putting up solar power capacities and also green hydrogen. Power Grid won smart meter projects in Gujarat.

It already has a data centre in Manesar and would be looking forward to capacity enhancement in Chennai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad cities, he added.