Two new substations to come up in Gurugram

Officials said that none of the developers is being provided 11kV load for single-point connection at construction stage of realty projects anymore

The Haryana Vidyut Prasaran Nigam (HVPN) Limited will set up two new substations in Gurugram sectors 37 and 99 by next year to strengthen its power transmission infrastructure, which is reeling with an overloading crisis at some places, officials said on Friday.

Electricity poles in a residential area in Gurugram. (HT Archive)

HVPN officials said that the one at Sector 37 will be of 66kV and the other one will be of 220KV. Officials said that both the substations will be based on gas-insulated technology which requires less space for construction and is safer. Both the substations, being constructed at a cost of ₹75 crores, are expected to be commissioned by mid-2025, they said.

The one in Sector 99 will be a crucial one as it is along the Dwarka Expressway and will service a larger area. It will be connected to the 220kV substations in Daultabad and Manesar Sector 1.

The one at Sector 37 will be connected to the Sector 33 220kV substation and it will ensure improved power supply to the industrial area there and end overloading of Sector 10 66kV substation, which supplies power to residential consumers.

BK Raghav, superintendent engineer, HVPN, said that these are the two major under-construction substations in Gurugram and Manesar. “They will boost transmission capacity and fulfil demand generated from the areas for the next eight to ten years. We commissioned two 66kV substations in Sector 46 and Udyog Vihar, Sector 18 last year,” he said.

Raghav said that they have switched to GIS (gas-insulated substation) technology as this requires almost one-third of the land that is required for air-insulated technology based substations (AIS).

“Another 66kV substation in Sector 10 is being upgraded from AIS to GIS technology. In a place like Gurugram where land prices are high and availability is tough, we need to ensure that our transmission infrastructure grows with the minimum resources available,” he said.

Officials said that while a 220kV AIS requires up to 15 acres of land, the same substations in GIS technology could be built on five acres. Similarly, a 66kV GIS substation will require only one acre while AIS of the same capacity will require up to 2.5 or 3 acres.

Only 33kV connection to developers instead of 11kV

Officials said that none of the developers in Gurugram is being provided 11kV load for single-point connection at construction stage of real estate projects anymore. The reason for this is that developers don’t increase their load capacity after they complete their projects, which is unable to cater to the increased demand of consumers and puts stress on the city’s power infrastructure. Policy has instead been changed to provide developers with 33kV load connections, officials said.

“Now developers are being provided only with a 33kV load connection which forces them to build their power supply infrastructure accordingly from the start. It will result in improved power supply to residents even when all of them start living in a society,” Raghav said, adding that this step will keep the public infrastructure free of undue stress.

Most of the societies in Gurugram face severe outages and faults because during their construction phase, they were provided 11kV single point connections. After projects were completed and residents moved into homes, the power infrastructure was not upgraded by developers. This results in severe overloading of infrastructure which causes power outages in summers. It ultimately affects the grid, too, as load gets transferred on the feeders and substations, officials said. Officials said that they repeatedly face the ire of residents of single-point connection societies when long outages or major faults take place in summers.