The four BESS systems together will have a capacity of 125 megawatt/500 megawatt hour (MW/MWh).
| Photo Credit: THULASI KAKKAT
The Kerala State Electricity Regulatory Commission (KSERC) has given it approval for a Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB) proposal to establish four grid-scale battery energy storage systems (BESS) at its substations.
The BESS units are planned at the sub-stations at Sreekantapuram in Alappuzha district, Pothencode in Thiruvananthapuram, Mulleria in Kasaragod and Areacode in Malappuram to handle the large volume of surplus solar power being generated in the State.
The four BESS systems together will have a capacity of 125 megawatt/500 megawatt hour (MW/MWh) where the MW rating denotes the maximum amount of power that can be delivered at any given moment and MWh indicates the total amount of energy that the system can store.
The BESS projects at Sreekantapuram and Pothencode will each have a capacity of 40 megawatt/160 megawatt hour (MW/MWh), while the ones planned in Mulleria and Areacode will have a capacity of 15 MW/60 Mwh and 30 MW/120 MWh.
KSEB proposes to implement these projects through NHPC Ltd, which has been nominated as a BESS Implementing Agency (BIA) by the Union Power Ministry under the viability gap funding (VGF) scheme for the development of BESS systems.
The projects have to be completed within 15 months of NHPC signing the agreement with the project developers. However, the commission has directed the KSEB and NHPC to explore whether the projects can be completed ahead of schedule.
The commission has also approved the monthly capacity charges quoted by four project developers shortlisted by NHPC.
Published – August 07, 2025 10:55 am IST
