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The Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB) is seriously contemplating the setting up of a 1,300-MW thermal power project at Cheemeni in Kasaragod district. The coal for this project will come from the coalfield the Union government has allotted for Kerala in  Orissa according to Electricity Minister A.K. Balan. A company for undertaking the mining operations has already been set up there by the KSEB in association with outside public sector power utilities.

Addressing a press conference, Mr. Balan said Union Minister for Power Sushil Kumar Shinde had told him that the Centre would provide all assistance for the project. The Centre was attaching top priority to power capacity addition all over the country, he said.

Earlier, Kerala has been wavering between the options of setting up a pit-head power project in Orissa in association with outside public sector power utilities and having a new power project in the State itself to utilise the coal from the field allotted to it in Orissa. The Minister’s statement indicated that the State is now settling for the latter option. Land is already available for the project at Cheemeni. Mr. Balan said the KSEB was taking concrete steps to ensure long-term power security in the State. With the commissioning of the LNG Terminal in Kochi, expected by 2012, natural gas would be available as fuel for power generation here. The plan now was to upgrade the KSEB’s Brahmapuram power project to 1,000-MW capacity, in addition to setting up one more project with a capacity to generate 1,000 MW of electricity, with LNG as fuel, he said.

The Kayamkulam unit of the National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) too was being upgraded by the addition of 1,950 MW of generation capacity.

Source - Hindu