The Corporation will soon entrust ICLEI South Asia, a consultancy agency, to prepare the detailed project report (DPR) for the proposed Solar City project.

The proposal to award the DPR preparation to ICLEI will be presented at the first Council meeting after the Corporation Budget session on Saturday. Once the Council gives its nod, the agency will be awarded with the work which is expected to be completed in three months. The estimated cost for DPR preparation is `10 lakh.

Kudumbasree plans extensive campaign across the State

In a move to spread the message of energy conservation among the people, the Kudumbasree Mission has planned an extensive publicity campaign across the State. In the district, the programme will be undertaken by selected Kudumbasree workers through community development societies (CDS). As part of this, a ‘Kalajaatha’ and a play will be held in the six municipalities and 81 panchayats of the district for a one-month period, along with awareness campaigns by experts from the Kerala State Electricity Board between March 2 and March 31.

State PSU to challenge de-allocation of Baitarani west coal block

The Odisha Hydro Power Corporation ( OHPC) is set to file a petition in the Odisha High Court, challenging the order of the Ministry of Coal on de-allocation and invocation of 50 per cent bank guarantee in respect of Baitarani west coal block. The coal block was jointly allocated to OHPC and two PSUs of other states – Gujarat Power Corporation Ltd (GPCL) and Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB).

The Congress-led UDF government in Kerala has opposed the Centre's suggestion to privatise the power distribution system under the Financial Power Restructuring Package.

Replying to an adjournment notice by AK Balan (CPI-M) in the Assembly on the reported move to privatise Kerala State Electricity Board, power minister Aryadan Muhammed said Kerala wanted to retain the Board in the public sector itself. Neither the public private participation route nor the franchise model for power distribution network was acceptable to the state, Muhammed said.

First unit of 500 MW likely to go on stream in December 2013

A consortium of banks has agreed to lend Rs. 937 crore for the 1,000-MW NTPL power project, a joint venture of the Neyveli Lignite Corporation and the Tamil Nadu Power Generation and Distribution Corporation. The project is coming up at Tuticorin. The agreement was signed by NLC Director (Finance) Rakesh Kumar and Bank of India Deputy General Manager (Mumbai) S. Gunasekar on the NLC premises on Monday.

K. Radhakrishnan, former KSEB Member (Generation), has said that given the peculiarities of the Kerala power system, any decision on large-scale grid connection to seasonal resources such as solar and wind power plants should be taken cautiously to maintain the power system security.

He said this while inaugurating a technical seminar on ‘Grid connectivity of renewable energy: issues and solutions’ organised by the KSEB Engineers Association and the Kerala Chapter of the Institution of Electrical and Electronic Engineers at the TKM College of Engineering here on Thursday.

If you are consuming power beyond the approved connected load, you may soon be held responsible for power theft.

The Kerala State Electricity Board has plans to conduct surprise checks on residences and commercial establishments to ensure that power consumption is within the approved limit. Though these inspections are already being carried out, the board is planning to intensify the checks. The board, however, has given consumers time till February 28 to intimate the nearest KSEB office about any additional plug points installed without approval.

The Kochi Corporation will soon entrust an agency with the preparation of the detailed project report (DPR) for the Solar City project which aims at making Kochi the first solar city in the state. The civic body had already invited an Expression of Interest (EoI) from the agencies that will undertake the DPR preparation.

“We expect to award the work by this month. The Solar City project is implemented with the financial aid mainly from the Central Government. The DPR preparation, which is expected to cost `10 lakh, and the fund for this will be fully provided by the centre.

Kochi: The workshop organised by SmartCity authorities for incorporating the views of various government departments and agencies, including Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB) and Kerala Water Authority (KWA), came a cropper on Wednesday as they remained clueless about the master plan.

Though the authorities of the IT project invited representatives of various departments, they were kept in the dark about SmartCity’s needs and requirements at the workshop on Thursday.

With Punjab power corporation scripting a success story for drastically bringing down the Aggregate Transmission and Commercial (AT&C) losses in the past five years, Haryana has also decided to adopt the Punjab model to bring down its AT&C losses. A team of experts today visited Patiala to see the systems adopted by the Punjab power corporation.

Haryana would adopt at least one 11-KV feeder in each operation circle to implement the Punjab model. While in the last five years, the Punjab power corporation has brought down AT&C losses from 22.5 per cent to 17.4 per cent, the present figure for Haryana is about 25 per cent.