Siemens Power Transmission and Distribution (PTD) and consortium partner
Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd (BHEL) have been awarded an order by the Power Grid Corporation of India Ltd, New Delhi, to construct a 780 kilometer (485 mile) long high-voltage direct-current (HVDC) transmission route between the provinces of Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan. The purpose of the new HVDC transmission system is to strengthen the power supply to the growing region around the megacity of New Delhi without the need to build additional power plants. The order has a total value of approximately 235 million euros financed by World Bank, with Siemens’ share amounting to about 170 million euros. Final commissioning is scheduled for November 2009.

The planned project is the fourth long-distance HVDC transmission link in India and will have the highest power rating of all. In the future, the bipolar 500-kV direct-current transmission system with a power rating of 2500 MW will transport electrical energy with low loss from Ballia in the east of Uttar Pradesh province to Bhiwadi, 780 km (485 miles) away in the province of Rajasthan near New Delhi. In comparison to a conventional 400 kV AC transmission line this HVDC transmission link improves energy
efficiency so that 688.000 tons of CO2 will be saved.

As head of the consortium, Siemens has overall responsibility for the project, including the design of the complete HVDC transmission system. Siemens will deliver the bulk of the core components such as converter valves, converter transformers, smoothing reactors, protection and control systems, and the AC and DC filters. The company is also undertaking the transport functions, construction work and the installation and startup
of the HVDC transmission system. The consortium partner BHEL is supplying the converter transformers for the Bhiwadi converter station and components of the AC switchgear for both converter stations.

The new long-distance HVDC transmission link is the second system that Siemens is building in India. The first high-voltage direct-current transmission route was the "East-South” long-distance link, which still currently ranks as the second longest HVDC transmission link in the world. Since 2003, the Siemens system has been transporting electrical energy with low loss from the Talcher power plant complex in the state of Orissa in the east of India over 1450 km to the industrial region around Bangalore in the south. This system was originally designed for 2000 MW transmission. In the summer of
2006 Powergrid Corporation of India commissioned Siemens to upgrade the power rating of this HVDC transmission system. The upgrade will optimize utilization of the system’s overload capacity of up to 2500 MW, and thereby enable the power supply company to keep pace with the growing demand for energy in the region around Bangalore.