Aarey Kudus line to supply extra power to city gets final clearance

Union Ministry clears Adani's Aarey Kudus project to boost Mumbai's power supply by 1,000 MW through HVDC technology, addressing growing demand and future power shortages.

MUMBAI: The Aarey Kudus project, which will augment Mumbai’s power supply to a great extent, has been cleared by the Union Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change. The clearance was granted on April 29 and the minutes were put up this week.

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The project is being implemented by Adani Electricity Mumbai Infra Limited (AEMIL), and a notice was issued by its authorised signatory Vikrant Patil on May 31. “The Aarey Kudus Project is a key project to ensure Mumbai’s energy security for the coming years,” said an Adani Energy Solutions Ltd spokesperson. “The project will make available up to 1,000 MW of energy to the city and is a key component of our 2027 vision of meeting 60% of the city’s power needs through renewable electricity from about 38% now.”

In order to augment Mumbai’s power transmission capacity, AEMIL is setting up a 80-km-long transmission link between the Maharashtra State Electricity Transmission Company Limited Kudus Substation and AEML’s Aarey Mumbai Substation with High-Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) technology, which is more efficient for transporting power over long distances than the alternate current system. This is India’s first HVDC transmission line in the private sector, and through it additional green energy from generating regions like Gujarat and Rajasthan can also be supplied to Mumbai. The project is expected to be delivered by 2026.

Mumbai’s power demand is growing at an estimated five per cent per year, and will reach 6,000 MW by 2030, driven by the increase in population and the commissioning of upcoming infrastructure projects like the metro lines, bullet train, Navi Mumbai International Airport, International Finance Service Centre and coastal roads among others.

After the 2020 Mumbai power outage, a state government committee noted that the city’s embedded generation capacity, which includes Tata Power’s 1,430-MW power plant and the 500-MW project of Adani Electricity’s Dahanu TPP was insufficient to meet the growing demand. Around 1,500 MW power was being brought to Mumbai through transmission corridors, which are already congested. The committee identified the need for augmenting the city’s transmission capacity.

As the Mumbai transmission network has limited interconnection transmission capacity with the state grid, the Maharashtra Electricity Regulatory Commission (MERC) identified two transmission projects, namely, the Kharghar-Vikhroli 400- kV scheme and the 1,000-MW Aarey-Kudus HVDC scheme to safeguard Mumbai from future power shortage and outages.

Adani Energy Solutions Ltd commissioned the crucial Kharghar-Vikhroli Transmission Line Project in October 2023, thereby securing 1,000 MW of additional power to Mumbai city.

Besides being one of the world’s most densely populated cities, Mumbai also faces peculiar geographical constraints like being surrounded by water bodies, creeks, reserved forests, mangrove-covered landscapes and other ecologically sensitive pockets. As a result, securing Right of Way (RoWs) for overhead transmission lines is extremely challenging.

Given the nature of the project and acute shortage of land, 50 of the 80 km of the Kudus Aarey transmission line will be underground, saving almost 2.3 sq km of space—equivalent to twice the area of Mumbai’s Shivaji Park.