Electricity demand growth is increasingly driven by the residential and commercial sector, with fast growing cities & increasing urbanization. Building new transmission infrastructure to feed into these load centers is becoming increasingly difficult due to high population density and Right of Way (RoW) challenges. Further, with the integration of renewables, the power flows vary with time due to seasonal as well as daily variations in the weather. Thus, the peak loading on the lines may occur only for limited durations. Developing new transmission infrastructure every time to cater to such power flows may not be an economical solution always.
To overcome these challenges, a solution that considers optimum utilization of RoW and existing transmission infrastructure can be of great significance. Enhancing the capacity of existing transmission lines & corridors by uprate and upgrade, therefore are considered as prudent alternative solutions. The capacity can be enhanced through uprate/upgrade of the existing system through various technologies, methods & execution techniques. This paper focuses on the voltage upgrade of existing transmission lines for the enhancement of transmission corridor capacity and its benefits.
