NEW DELHI, October 10 — The Ministry of Power in coordination with the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) on Saturday floated final engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) tenders for the ₹20,773 crore inter-state High-Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) Green Energy Transmission Corridor linking Pang in Ladakh to Kaithal in Haryana.
Spearheaded by the Power Grid Corporation of India Limited (PGCIL), the mega-infrastructure project involves stringing 713 kilometers of ultra-high-voltage transmission cables across rugged Himalayan mountain passes exceeding 15,000 feet in elevation, passing through Himachal Pradesh and Punjab before terminating at the national grid hub in Haryana. The architecture integrates a massive 5 GW (5,000 MW) HVDC terminal paired with a 12 GWh Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) to ensure round-the-clock dispatchable clean power.
Supported by a 40 percent Central Financial Assistance (CFA) grant of ₹8,309 crore from the Union Government, the transmission backbone will evacuate clean electricity generated from the 13 GW Renewable Energy Park in Ladakh. Beyond national grid decarbonization, the project interconnections will supply reliable, all-weather grid power to forward military deployments in Leh and Kargil, eliminating winter diesel generator reliance.
The technical advantages of High-Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) over Alternating Current (AC) for long-distance bulk power transmission (elimination of reactive power losses and skin effect), Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS), Green Energy Corridor phases, and India's 500 GW non-fossil electricity target by 2030 are core topics across UPSC Civil Services (GS-III: Energy Infrastructure) and Engineering Services (ESE) examinations.