COIMBATORE: To generate additional renewable green energy in the next five years, the state government has announced two pumped storage projects at Aliyar in Coimbatore, and Vellimalai in Kanniyakumari.
According to the plan of becoming a trillion-dollar economy by 2030, the state’s power demand is expected to double and to generate an additional 100 billion units of renewable green energy.
As the first step towards green energy, pumped storage projects with a capacity of 1,100 MW in the Vellimalai and 1,800 MW in the Aliyar in Coimbatore district have been announced in the budget. The project is likely to be developed through the Public Private Partnership (PPP) model, with an investment of Rs 11,721 crore.
Officials said the plan will be executed based on the Tamil Nadu Pumped Storage Projects Policy (PSP) 2024. At Vellimalai, it would be executed at a cost of Rs 4,251 crore. Both the lower and upper reservoirs need to be developed for the project and the tender bid documents are currently under preparation, with plans to issue tenders by April.
At Aliyar, which would cost Rs 6,500 crore, both the lower and upper reservoirs already exist. The work of tender bid documents preparation is underway and is expected to be floated by June. Currently, there is a pumped storage project operating at Kadambarai next to Upper Aliyar, which produces 400MW of electricity, said officials.
“During solar hours the plant operates in pumping mode, using excess power available in the grid to pump water from the lower reservoir to the upper reservoir. During peak hours, it operates in generation mode, utilising the stored water in the upper reservoir to generate electricity,” they added.
Explaining the battery storage system, also announced in the budget, sources said energy will be stored in batteries during solar hours and discharged during peak hours. As per the announcement a 4,000 MWh battery storage system is planned at substations across the state.