As power consumption has reached an all-time high in the State in the middle of a scorching summer, experts feel that the State must take a cue from the success of Cochin International Airport Limited (CIAL) in tapping small hydro-electric power generation potential to meet at least a part of the rising demand and to keep costs down.
CIAL Infrastructures Limited, CIAL’s holding company, operates a small hydel project at Arippara in Kozhikode district with an installed capacity to produce 4.5 MW of power. The run-of-the river facility has been allotted on a build-own-operate-transfer (BOOT) basis for a period of 30 years from October 2014.
The project is in operation during the rainy season and over the past two seasons, the facility has generated 2.5 crore units of power since it was commissioned in October, 2021.
