The VO Chidambaranar Port Trust in Thoothukudi plans to put up wind farms at the port estate to generate 50-100 MW of power. This is part of the port’s green energy initiative to fulfil the Union Ministry of Ports and Shipping’s green port policy framework.

The Port Trust has appointed the National Institute of Wind Energy (NIWE) as project consultant to prepare a Detailed Project Report in four months to develop the wind farms. It has also called for Expression of Interest for setting up the wind farm.

The initial project for onshore and offshore shall be taken up in the future. Typically, to install a 1-MW wind farm, it costs around ₹6 crore, said port trust sources.

Among the major ports, Kandla generates 20.7 MW of power from two wind farms — three turbines generating 6 MW near Rajkot and seven turbines near Jamnagar generating 14.7 MW. The Solar Energy Corporation of India under the Union Ministry of New & Renewable Energy has floated a tariff-based tender from wind power developers to set up the wind power projects. One of the designated 400/230 KV power delivery points in the tender is Thoothukudi.

Wind monitoring study

A year ago, the VOC Port Trust entrusted the wind monitoring study at the port area with NIWE. The NIWE installed a 100 m lattice mast with wind monitoring instruments that include data logger and interconnection with NIWE server in the port estate. For the last one year, it had collected wind data, processed the raw data and simulated the wind potential in the port area.

The analysis found that the port area has sufficient wind power potential to develop wind farms in the region. The mean wind speed and wind power density value during the study was 6.65 m/s and 256.86 W/m2, respectively, sources said.

The project report will cover background, benefits of the project, wind power overview, location and site details, wind characteristics, wind flow modelling and energy yield estimation, electrical power system and grid interface, project cost and financial analysis, management arrangement and time frame for the project.

As part of the green initiative, VOC Port Trust has installed 500 KW solar roof top and installation of 5 MW ground-based solar PV plant and another 270 KW rooftop PV plant is under progress, the sources said.