KOCHI: Cochin International Airport Ltd (CIAL), the world’s first airport fully powered by solar energy, on Wednesday commissioned a parallel 110 KV electrical substation for exporting the power generated by its eight solar plants to the Kerala State Electricity Board Ltd’s (ksebl) grid.
Managing Director V J Kurian inaugurated the plant which was constructed at a cost of `16 crore. CIAL has been using only one substation so far to facilitate power banking arrangement with KSEBL.This became insufficient as the company had augmented its solar power plant’s total installed capacity to 40 MWp. With the commissioning of additional substation, CIAL will now be able to bank the power through two channels; one for the export of power and the other for the import of it from the KSEB grid. At present, the 40 MWp solar power plants generate approximately 1.63 lakh units of power a day. The average consumption per day is approximately 1.53 lakhs. The annual saving towards the electricity bill is `36 crore, an official release said here.
The solar power plants contribute to an annual saving of 37,200 MT of greenhouse gas emission. Airport director A C K Nair, executive director A M Shabeer, CFO Sunil Chacko, DGM Satheesh Pai and managing director of TelK B Prasad, Consultant Rajan Babu participated at the function, the release added.
With the commissioning of additional substation, CIAL will now be able to bank the power through two channels; one for the export of power and the other for the import of it from the KSEB grid.