Tata Power Completes Uprating of Transmission Line between Kalwa & Salsette for Mumbai

Tata Power has announced the completion of uprating of existing transmission line no. 3 between MSETCL Kalwa Receiving Station and Tata Power Salsette Receiving Station (8 km route length) by replacing existing conductor with high ampacity conductor (capacity increased from 900 amps to 1800 amps). The uprated 220kV line will relieve critical loading of the Kalwa-Salsette lines and will enhance transmission capacity for bringing power from outside to Mumbai city. 

The acute shortage of power has made it necessary for power to be imported from outside the city. The transmission network, especially 220 KV Kalwa-Salsette lines, is critically loaded most of the time due to reduction in embedded generation in Mumbai. To reduce the critical loading of these lines, Tata Power had put up a proposal to Maharashtra State Load Despatch Centre (SLDC) and State Transmission Utility (STU) for augmenting transmission capacity between Kalwa and Salsette. 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 uprated. Tata Power also plans to take up uprating 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/ 110 kV lines and 21 receiving stations spread across the city of Mumbai. The Company has pioneered many initiatives and one such key initiative is the islanding system in the network of the city of Mumbai, which isolates it from blackouts caused by faults in national grid. The transmission system is the link between the generating stations and the distribution companies for transmitting power from the generating stations and also is the corridor for bringing in power from outside Mumbai.

Commenting on this development, Mr. Ashok Sethi, COO and Executive Director, Tata Power stated that “At Tata Power we have always worked towards improving reliability of power supply to Mumbai. The uprating of existing transmission line no. 3 was taken up as an emergency work with 15 days notice and has been completed before the summer season for Mumbai. We would like to take this opportunity to thank SLDC and MSETCL / STU for their support. We would also like to commend our execution team who have made this possible".

The uprating project carried out in very difficult terrain (involving multiple road crossings, creek crossing, live 22kV feeder crossings, Eastern Express Highway crossing and Central Railway crossing) was completed safely in a record benchmark time period of 38 days to ensure completion prior to the upcoming summer months.