Page 270 - economic review

INFRASTRUCTURE242

large scale exploitation of solar may be limited in view of the State coming under the lower strata of
solar irradiation zones, there is considerable opportunity in developing decentralised off-grid as well
as grid interactive roof top solar projects in Kerala in the domestic and commercial sectors.

Box 5.9
A State Planning Board Initiative
Solar Power Project in West Kallada Grama Panchayat

It is proposed to establish a 50MW Solar Power Project in the infertile and unused land
available in West Kallada Grama Panchayat in Kollam Dist in association with NHPC, KSEB
and West Kallada Grama Panchayat. The land available for the project is about 300 acres.
NHPC Limited, the implementing agency signed an MoU with KSEB Limited on 7thMay 2014.
Topographic survey of the proposed project area was completed and maps were prepared.
College of Engineering, Trivandrum has completed the soil investigation study. M/s NIT Bhopal
has been entrusted with the work for the preparation of DPR of the proposed project and
will be completed by the first week of February 2015. The KSEB Limited shall facilitate for
the formation of a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) involving the Grama Panchayat and the
land owners in the proposed site and shall bear the initial expenditure in the formation and
registration of the Special Purpose Vehicle. President, West Kallada Grama Panchayat and
Dist. Collector, Kollam are the Govt. nominees in the Board of Directors of the proposed
Company. KSEB Ltd shall enter in to a bipartite agreement with the Grama Panchayat and
SPV to facilitate transfer of land to the project. This is a model and innovative project and first
of its kind in the State and may be across the country for effectively utilizing abandoned sand
mind sites, which is kept fallow for a long period. The work towards the implementation of the
project is initiated by State Planning Board.

Gas based Power Projects:

5.117 Few proposals to set up gas based power plants in the State are being finalized by various
agencies. These include the 400 MW gas based power plant proposed by the KSEB Ltd. at
Brahmapuram, conversion of the existing naphtha based power plant of 360 MW capacity of NTPC
at Kayamkulam to a gas based power plant together with expansion of capacity by setting up 1050
MW gas based units. There is also a proposal for conversion of the existing naphtha based power
plant of 157 MW capacity owned by BSES Kerala Power Ltd. at Kochi to a gas based plant along
with expansion of capacity. At present these projects are proposed to be run using the RLNG sourced
from Petronet’s LNG terminal at Kochi. As the price of RLNG is much higher than that of domestic
gas, economic power generation will not be possible unless domestic gas is allocated to these power
plants, so as to make the cost of power affordable. All efforts need to be taken to get domestic gas
allocation for these projects to meet at least 60% of the fuel requirement for the initial capacity of the
three power plants.

Coal based Power Projects:

5.118 Efforts need to be taken to re-allocate the Baitarni coal to Kerala, allocation of which was
cancelled by the Central Government citing delay in developing the coal block. As already pointed
out to the Ministry of Coal, the responsibility for the delay in coal block development were not entirely
attributable to the allocattees. Considering the importance of the Baitarni coal allocation to the
energy starved state, urgent intervention is required in revoking the order of the Ministry of Coal in
de-allocating the Baitarni West coal block.

Kerala State Planning Board