Abstract

This paper highlights the renewable energy (RE) potential in India's Southern region (SR), estimated primarily on the basis of resource availability, land use and land cover, and proximity to grid infrastructure. It also projects the additional RE generation capacity required, apart from the existing and planned conventional and RE generation capacity, to meet the electricity demand in SR for the year 2030 (as estimated by the Central Electricity Authority). The study involved performing power-flow analyses for the SR transmission network through detailed transmission-network modelling in the ETAP software. Eight different scenarios-chosen to capture the variations in SR demand and in solar and wind generation patterns-were considered. Our study finds that SR has a solar potential of 329 GW and a wind potential of 188 GW, spread over an area of 6,654 km2 and 39,405 km2, respectively. It estimates that to match the projected demand, another 53 GW of RE capacity needs to be installed, requiring additional transmission infrastructure capacity-22,735 MVA of transformation capacity and 5,642 ckm of transmission lines. The study also projects that an investment of around .12,867 crore ($1.62 billion) would be needed for strengthening and upgrading the region's transmission infrastructure.

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