Cochin International Airport Limited (CIAL), the world’s first airport fully powered by solar energy, commissioned a parallel 110 kV electrical substation on Wednesday for exporting power generated by its eight solar plants to the Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB) grid. CIAL managing director V.J. Kurien inaugurated the plant which was constructed at a cost of ₹16 crore, said a press release here.
CIAL has been using only one substation so far to facilitate power banking arrangement with the electricity board. This became insufficient as the company had augmented its solar power plant’s installed capacity to 40 MW. With the commissioning of the additional substation, CIAL is now able to bank the power through two channels: one for the export of power and the other for the import from the KSEB grid.
At present, the 40 MW solar power plants generate 1.63 lakh units of power a day. The average consumption per day is 1.53 lakh units. The annual saving in electricity bill is ₹36 crore. The solar power plants avert an annual greenhouse gas emission of 37,200 tonnes.