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Results Profile: India Electrification                                                                       March 3, 2010




 POWER TO THE PEOPLE…

 Meeting India’s Demand for Electricity




Overview
India’s national power transmission utility, Power Grid Corporation (POWERGRID), has tapped
IBRD funding and technical assistance for more than a decade in its efforts to address the
country’s significant energy shortages. This partnership has helped direct more power to local
regions in need from those with an energy surplus, and laid many thousands of kilometers of
new transmission lines.

  Full Brief—3 Pages
Meeting India’s demand for electricity—PDF, April 2010


Challenge
India faces an acute deficit of electric power. Almost half of
                                                                       More Results
all Indian households do not have access to electricity.
Average annual per capita consumption of electricity in India

                                                                       60%
was only about 30 percent of the world’s average in 2007
and 2008. Generation capacity is insufficient to meet the
existing demand for electricity, and transmission and
distribution networks that carry power to consumers are                of India’s electricity projected to
                                                                       be carried by POWERGRID by
inadequate. As India’s energy resources are spread unevenly            end 2012
across the country, the efficient transmission of power from
surplus to deficient regions is critical. There is, therefore, a
pressing need to strengthen and expand the all-India
                                                                       MORE INFORMATION
national transmission network—the national grid.
                                                                        World Bank in India

                                                                        Power Grid Corporation
Approach
IBRD has been involved with India’s energy program for
more than a decade, using innovative financing and                     PARTNERS
technical advice to help the Indian government and
                                                                        International Finance
POWERGRID address the country’s energy shortages.
                                                                        Corporation

Under a series of Power System Development Projects                     Asian Development Bank
(PSDP), the Bank has provided five direct loans to
POWERGRID: PSDP I in 1993, PSDP II in 2001, PSDP III in
2006, PSDP IV and additional financing for PSDP IV in
2008, and PSDP V in 2009. To date, IBRD has provided                
$3.1 billion in tailored financial and technical support to
India’s energy sector.

Between 1993 and 2003, the Bank concentrated its efforts on helping develop the national
transmission network by strengthening regional grids, facilitating the transfer of power across
the regions through POWERGRID. The next phase of lending started after 2006 when the
Bank adopted a balanced approach focused on generation and transmission, with selective
engagement in distribution.

In 2007, the Rampur hydropower project marked the first Bank-financed hydropower
development in India since 1989. Recently, the Bank has been involved with various central
and state sector utilities in capacity building and institutional strengthening exercises.


Results
POWERGRID has successfully achieved all development objective indicator targets in recent
years. For the fiscal year ending June 30, 2009, results include:
• 46,027    million kilowatt hours of power exchange between and across the regions against a
target of   46,000 million kilowatt hours;
• 71,447    circuit km of transmission capacity against a target of 71,000 circuit km; and
• 79,522    Megavolt Ampere (MVA) of transformation capacity against a target of 75,000 MVA.

Today, hydropower from Arunachal Pradesh in the far east of the country is carried on
specially designed transmission lines to light homes in Uttar Pradesh; power engineers in Tamil
Nadu in the deep south keep close tabs on the weather forecast for Punjab in the north to
assess opportunities for power trading; and the gas-based Kayamkulam power station located
at the southern tip of the Indian mainland is activated in winter to warm the freezing nights in
Kashmir.

India’s electricity transmission system operator is also consistently maintaining transmission
system availability at over 99 percent, which is at par with international utilities.



POWERGRID has tripled its transmission network and is now
one of the world's largest electricity transmission system
operators.

Toward the Future
In response to the global downturn and at the request of the Government of India, the World
Bank extended a loan of $1 billion to POWERGRID on September 22, 2009. The loan will help
POWERGRID strengthen five transmission systems to facilitate the transfer of power from
energy surplus regions to towns and villages in underserved regions of the country. This will
also increase the integration of national grid, resulting in increased system reliability and a
reduction in transmission losses.

 


                                                     Last updated: 2010-04-07