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• As part of India’s green energy push, the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) chaired by the Prime Minister approved the ₹12,031 crore second phase of setting up transmission projects for supplying electricity from renewable energy projects.
• The scheme on Green Energy Corridor (GEC) Phase-II for Intra-State Transmission System (InSTS) will add up to approximately 10,750 circuit kilometres (ckm) of transmission lines and approx. 27,500 MegaVolt-Amperes (MVA) transformation capacity of substations.
• Green energy corridors are being set up in two phases with the second phase of the transmission corridors to supply 20 gigawatt (GW) of renewable energy to the national grid from the seven states of Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh.

About Green Energy Corridor Project

• The Green Energy Corridor Project aims at synchronizing electricity produced from renewable sources, such as solar and wind, with conventional power stations in the grid.
• For evacuation of large-scale renewable energy, the Intra State Transmission System (InSTS) project was sanctioned by the Ministry in 2015-16.
• It is being implemented by eight renewable-rich states of Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, and Madhya Pradesh and will help supply around 24 GW of renewable energy by 2022.
• The decision comes in the backdrop of PM pledging at the COP26 summit in Glasgow to meet 50% of India’s energy requirements from renewable energy by 2030 and increasing non-fossil fuel power generation capacity to 500GW by the end of this decade.
• The scheme is targeted to be set up with total estimated cost of Rs. 12,031.33 crore and Central Financial Assistance (CFA) @ 33 percent of the project cost i.e. Rs. 3970.34 crore. 
• The transmission systems will be created over a period of five year from Financial Year 2021-22 to 2025-26.
• The scheme is for addition of 9700 ckm of transmission lines and 22600 MVA capacity of substations having estimated cost of transmission projects of Rs. 10,141.68 crore with Central Financial Assistance (CFA) of Rs. 4056.67 crore.
• The state-run Power System Operation Corp Ltd (Posoco) oversees the country’s critical electricity load management functions through the National Load Dispatch Centre (NLDC) and a set of regional load dispatch centres (RLDCs) and state load dispatch centres (SLDCs). 
• India has 33 SLDCs, five RLDCs—for the five regional grids that form the national grid—and one NLDC.
• These corridors form an important component to ensure that the grid frequency always remains within the 49.90-50.05 Hz (hertz) band.
• Also, recently an Automatic Generation Control (AGC) has been made operational which sends signals to power plants every four seconds to maintain frequency and thereby ensure reliability of India’s power system.
• The interest in India’s green energy economy continues to grow with the sector receiving foreign direct investment (FDI) of $7.27 billion from 2014-15 up to June 2021 and of this $797.21 million was received during 2020-21. 
• According to the Central Electricity Authority, by 2030, the country’s power requirement would be 817GW, more than half of which would be clean energy.

Progress so Far

• India has achieved its NDC target with total non-fossil based installed energy capacity of 157.32 GW which is 40.1% of the total installed electricity capacity. Of this, solar, wind and hydropower accounts for 48.55 GW, 40.03 GW and 51.34 GW respectively.
• Also, India’s nuclear energy based installed electricity capacity stands at 6.78 GW. 
• Around 63 GW of renewable energy capacity is under various phases of construction and installed power capacity from non-fossil fuels is expected to go up to 66% by 2030.

References:

1. https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/cabinet-clears-12k-cr-green-energy-corridor-101641493295669.html
2. https://mnre.gov.in/green-energy-corridor