Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL) is about to set up an 8.40-MW solar power plant on its Kochi Refinery campus.
The ground-breaking ceremony for the proposed plant was held in the presence of Ajith Kumar K., Executive Director (Kochi Refinery), and Shelly Abraham, Head (BPCL Renewable Energy) on Thursday (August 25). The project is in tune with BPCL’s goal of building a strong renewable energy portfolio of 1 gigawatt of renewable energy by 2025.
The proposed plant will come up on 25 acres on the Irumpanam side of the Kochi Refinery. On completion, the plant is expected to generate around 123 lakh units of electricity annually. It will be used for the operations of the refinery.
“This is another step towards enhancing the green energy capabilities of BPCL Kochi Refinery. We continue on our path towards sustainability, energy conservation, and production of green energy through roof-mounted and ground-mounted solar power projects,” said Mr. Kumar.
In 2018, BPCL had commissioned a roof-mounted 120-kWp solar power plant and has been increasingly pursuing solar energy options since then. Recently, the company also won the award instituted by the Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE), Ministry of Power, and Centre for High Technology and Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas for implementing ‘Best Energy Efficient Project’ under the Perform, Achieve and Trade (PAT) Scheme.”
Mr. Abraham said the renewable energy business unit of BPCL was planning to set up a number of solar power plants across the country. “Apart from Kochi Refinery, we are also looking at setting up such plants in our depots at Tadali, Badnera, Sanganer, and Karur. We have established a separate Renewable Energy Business Unit last year to meet the aspirations of BPCL in the field of energy transition and to help in achieving BPCL’s aim of reaching Net Zero by 2040 in Scope 1 and 2 emissions,” he said.
The company is now exploring various opportunities to scale up the green energy portfolio of BPCL, including participating in power purchase tenders and studying the feasibility of setting up solar power projects at land banks owned by BPCL. A memorandum of understanding was signed with Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) for leveraging its expertise in developing solar power projects.
