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Five artillery vigor retention systems (BESS) projected by the Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB) are expected to beryllium completed by October 2026, according to an update provided by the powerfulness inferior to the State Electricity Regulatory Commission.
Two of the retention systems are coming up successful Kasaragod territory -- the archetypal 1 astatine Mylatti with a projected capableness of 125 megawatts (MW)/500 megawatt hours (MWh) and a 2nd 15MW/60MWh task astatine Mulleria. The different 3 are a 40 MW/160 MWh BESS astatine Sreekantapuram, a 30 MW/120 MWh task astatine Areecode, and a 40 MW/160 MWh BESS successful Pothencode.
Responding to a clarification sought by the Commission, the KSEB has fixed October 2026 arsenic the Commercial Operation Date (COD) for each 5 projects, the Commission noted successful a June 12 order. With respect to BESS capacity, the MW standing denotes the maximum magnitude of powerfulness that a BESS strategy tin present astatine immoderate fixed moment. MWh indicates the full magnitude of vigor that the strategy tin store.
Operational challenges
In caller years, the accelerated summation successful star powerfulness procreation has presented the KSEB with unsocial operational challenges. Although Kerala often has surplus energy during daytime, it lacks ample vigor retention systems to store it for aboriginal use. The precocious request during the non-solar hours continues to beryllium met done costly powerfulness purchases. Moreover, to accommodate the star powerfulness injected into the grid during the daytime, the KSEB often ‘surrenders’ the powerfulness contracted connected semipermanent basis.
In April this year, erstwhile Kerala experienced a powerfulness shortage, the Regulatory Commission had noted that if the BESS projects could person been commissioned somewhat up of schedule, the KSEB could person avoided specified surrenders of contracted power.
In summation to the aforementioned 5 projects, a sixth 1 is besides connected the anvil. Through a June 12 order, the Regulatory Commission has fixed the KSEB its support for establishing a grid-connected BESS astatine the 220 kV substation premise astatine Brahmapuram successful Ernakulam district.
The Brahmapuram BESS volition beryllium established with viability spread backing (VGF) done the Centre’s Power System Development Fund (PSDF) scheme. The Commission, headed by T.K. Jose, has approved a Battery Energy Storage merchantability statement the KSEB had signed with M/s Shreyas LFP Energy for establishing the facility. This grid-connected BESS volition person a capableness of 250MW/500MWh.
