{"id":104392,"date":"2026-05-21T13:17:19","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T07:47:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=104392"},"modified":"2026-05-21T13:48:14","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T08:18:14","slug":"velimalai-pumped-storage-hydro-electric-project","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/velimalai-pumped-storage-hydro-electric-project\/","title":{"rendered":"Velimalai Pumped Storage Hydro Electric Project"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><b>Velimalai Pumped Storage Hydro Electric Project Latest News<\/b><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The 1,100 MW Velimalai Pumped Storage Hydroelectric Project in the Kanniyakumari district has been granted Terms of Reference (ToR) clearance by the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest, and Climate Change recently.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>About Velimalai Pumped Storage Hydro Electric Project<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is an <\/span><b>1100 MW <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">pumped hydropower storage plant to be developed at Vellimalai in the <\/span><b>Kanyakumari district of Tamil Nadu.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This is the <\/span><b>first project in Tamil Nadu <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">to be developed under the <\/span><b>public-private partnership mode<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">l on a <\/span><b>build-own-operate-transfer basis<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> in accordance with Section 63 of the Electricity Act.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The project, <\/span><b>planned as a closed-loop off-river system<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, is aimed at strengthening peak power management in the State and enabling round-the-clock integration of renewable energy.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The project will comprise an <\/span><b>underground powerhouse<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> comprising <\/span><b>four units of 275 MW each.\u00a0\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>Two new off-river reservoirs <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">will be built.\u00a0<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The upper reservoir will have a gross storage capacity of 4.39 million cubic metres.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The lower reservoir, upstream of the existing Mambazhathuraiyar dam, will have a gross storage capacity of 4.91 million cubic metres.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The project is <\/span><b>designed to pump <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">about 3.94 million cubic metres of <\/span><b>water to the upper reservoir <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">over 6.94 hours<\/span><b> during off-peak periods.<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>Electricity generation<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> is planned for <\/span><b>six hours a day using stored water,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> with peak annual energy generation estimated at 2,080.55 million KWh.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As a<\/span><b> closed-loop off-river project,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> both <\/span><b>reservoirs will be artificially created<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and will<\/span><b> not be located on perennial rivers or streams.<\/b>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>Water will circulate<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> between the two reservoirs <\/span><b>in a controlled cycle with minimal reliance on natural inflows.\u00a0 <\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Source<\/b><strong>:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newindianexpress.com\/states\/tamil-nadu\/2026\/May\/21\/centre-grants-tor-clearance-for-tamil-nadus-velimalai-hydro-project\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>NIE<\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Velimalai Pumped Storage Hydro Electric Project is an 1100 MW pumped hydropower storage plant to be developed at Vellimalai in the Kanyakumari district of Tamil Nadu. Read more about Velimalai Pumped Storage Hydro Electric Project, Capacity, Latest News.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":104433,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[21,22,23,7649],"class_list":{"0":"post-104392","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"tag-prelims-pointers","9":"tag-upsc-current-affairs","10":"tag-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","11":"tag-velimalai-pumped-storage-hydro-electric-project","12":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104392","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104392"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104392\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":104440,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104392\/revisions\/104440"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/104433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}