Integrated EB grid will allow wind energy sharing by 2014

Power sharing is likely to become easier in two years when the southern power grid will be connected to the national grid, said Dr S Gomathi Nayagam, executive director of the Centre for Wind Energy Technology (CWET).

Speaking at a two-day conference on renewable energy conducted by the Centre for Development Finance - IFMR he pointed out, "The northern, eastern and western grids have already been connected. Only the southern grid remains to be connected. This was delayed due to problems related to land acquisition."

According to him, connection to the national grid will speed up the process of power sharing and also allow Tamil Nadu to pump its surplus wind energy to the northern grid. "Tamil Nadu makes surplus wind energy that it cannot use as the bandwidth of the transmission cables is not wide enough currently, especially in the rural feeders to handle a high surge of electricity that may be produced during monsoon seasons," he said. "Wind energy is not stable, sometimes its blows at 6 m/second, sometimes at 20 m/s. But the cables connecting to the national grid will be a newer model with better bandwidth."

This may also ease the congestion troubles voiced by chief minister Jayalalithaa a few days ago over the delay in arrival of purchased power. She had told the media that although the state had purchased 500MW from Gujarat, only 203MW could be transmitted due to the limited corridor availability allotted by the central load dispatching authorities. The new transmission cables would ensure wider bandwidth with no intermediary connectors and transmission loss would also be low.

Dr Nayagam also said that they were in the process of setting up a wind farm in Dhanushkodi in Ramanathapuram district. "We have got the state government's sanction, paid the lease and are now in the process of setting up an assessment mast of 100 metres height," he said. "Procuring one that will not corrode in the saline atmosphere is taking up some time. When we install, we shall use it to gauge wind speed at 7 levels," he added.

The site of the wind farm is to be on a narrow strip of land ranging between 0-200m of length and 9 kilometres long. "That will take care of jurisdictional issues which we face with regard to setting up offshore wind farms out in the ocean," he said. "This project will cost 2 crores."