As a part of its continuous effort to bridge the industry academia gap and to make the passed-outs industry-ready, the department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering department, School of Technology, Assam Don Bosco University organized another industrial visit for the students of the department, this time to India's first HVDC substation located in Bishwanath Chariali, Biswanath (Assam) on 4th March 2017.
Final year students along with some faculties visited India's first high-voltage, direct-current (HVDC) transmission line originating from the substation which is of 800 kV, 6000MW connecting the northern states with the north-eastern ones.
Students learnt about the capacity of the transmission line which is a high-capacity (800-kV, 6,000-MW) HVDC bipole line that is being implemented from Bishwanath Chariali in Assam to Agra in Uttar Pradesh through Alipurduar in West Bengal. The instructor at the substation explained that the high-voltage corridor would facilitate transfer of 24,000 MW from future generation projects in the north-eastern region and Bhutan. He demonstrated the working of various equipments and components employed for various tasks in the substation, viz. switchyards, bridge rectifiers, transformers, circuit breakers, isolators, etc.
For the students, it was worth knowing that the corridor shall integrate the north-eastern region with other regions of the country to facilitate smooth and reliable power transfer, giving rise to a stable national grid. Here it is noteworthy to mention that the nature of control of power flow of the HVDC interconnection provides additional flexibility in grid operation, thereby improving various grid parameters. This link will act as a highway from the north-eastern region to the rest of the country and shall play a significant role in the hydro potential in the north-eastern region. The transmission project, connecting 1,728 km, was started in September 2013 and is nearly complete. Currently, only China has such a high-voltage transmission corridor.
The students' visit was supervised by Mr. Jesif Ahmed (Senior Asst. Prof.), along with Mr. Papul Changmai (Asst. Prof.), Mr. Biswajit Sengupta (Asst. Prof.) and Mr. Ujjal Choudhury.
(Report: Mr. Biswajit Sengupta)