KSEB Limited (Kerala State Electricity Board Limited)

Introduction:

The KSEB Limited (Kerala State Electricity Board Limited) is an undertaking by the Government of Kerala state, India. Established in 1957 as KSEB (Kerala State Electricity Board) under the Electricity (Supply) Act, 1948, under the authority of Department of power, the board manages to generate, transmits, and distributes electricity across the state. After much organisation development policies from the part of state and centre, the board is currently registered and operating under the Companies Act, 1956.

Basic Information:

Organisation type: Public Sector Company

Headquarters: Thiruvananthapuram

Established: 07 March 1957

Service Sector(s): Generation, Transmission, Distribution of Electricity; Promotion of Green energy; Promotion of energy conservation; Promotion of Hydel Tourism

Industrial Sphere(s): Kerala State

Worth: INR 3,071,550.48 Cr as of 2018

Turnover: INR 26,114.99 Cr as of 2018

Equity:

Personage(s): N.S. Pillai IA&AS, Chairman, Managing Director, and Chief of Finance; M.M. Mani, Incumbent minister of department.

Moto: “Provide quality electricity to customers adequately, safely, sustainably at affordable cost”

Organisational Structure and Hierarchy of Governance:

The developments, expansion, tariff slabs, fund allotments within and undertaken by KSEB Limited is overseen and governed by the Ministry of Electricity for the state legislature.

Board of Directors:

The board of directors for KSEBL is the supreme panel of members, from which a chairman and managing director is appointed as a term based tenure. Mostly the position will be appointed only to an Indian civil servant, not less than an IAS. The panel consists of an independently appointed director as per the provisions in Companies Act, 2013, the appointment is made under the general body meeting.

Strategic Business Units (SBUs):

The Corporate office, managed by the Director for finance co-ordinate and control the activities of the board. The director is assisted by a special officer for revenue, financial advisor and the Internal Auditor in chief. It houses a staffing under the secretary of administration for public relations as well as for the communication with Union government authority.

The KSEBL, operates as a single integrated utility having three strategic business units (SBUs)- SBU Generation (SBU G) holding the generation assets, SBU Transmission (SBU T) which is the deemed transmission licensee & State Transmission Utility, and SBU Distribution (SBU D) holding the distribution license. The Strategic Business Units (SBUs) along with the corporate office, under operating under each appointed directors form the board, is overseen by the chairman and managing director.

The SBU G is managed under the Directors for Generation (Electrical) & SCM- Supply chain management and Generation (Civil) for construction of Infra, both are assisted by chief engineers on different regional sectors.

The SBU T is managed by a director for transmission, System Operations, & REES and a director for planning & safety. The former is assisted by chief engineers for regional sectors, chief engineer system operations, chief engineer for TransGrid, and dedicated appointment for renewable energy and energy savings; the latter assisted by chief safety commissioner. The SBU D is managed by a director for distribution, IT and HRM assisted by chief engineers for regional sectors.

The KSEB employs assistant engineers, technical teams, admin teams, permanent and contract based field workers on the downing hierarchy to provide quality service for the customers and manage a round the clock electric supply to each corner of the state.

Operational Infrastructure

Generation:

The KSEBL generates power with own hydro & thermal power generation stations, solar farms and wind farms. The generation step is also carried out in captive mode, co-generation facilities, and independent power projects.

Hydel Generation of KSEBL: The KSEBL operates about 31 hydro-electric power generating stations across Kerala, with a total installed capacity of 2823.01 Mega Watts (MW), which contributes approximately 25% of the total required power. Starting from Pallivasal, the first Hydel project, Dams in Idukki is the major contributor of electricity for the entire state.

Fossil Fuel Usage of KSEBL: KSEBL generates about 614.48 MW of electricity from fossil fuel aided stations. The board operates two diesel power plants at Brahmapuarm and Kozhikode. Brahmapuram Diesel Power Plant (BDPP) at Kochi is installed with a capacity of 106.6 MW and Kozhikode Diesel Power Plant (KDDP) at Nallalam with and installed capacity of 128 MW. Others include Philips Carbon Black Limited (PCBL) and MPS steel castings Pvt. Ltd. with a capacity of 10 MW each and, Rajiv Gandhi Combined Cycle Power Plant (RGCCPP) at Kayamkulam with a capacity of 359.58 MW.

Wind Farms of KSEBL: The state electricity board generates more than 70.275 MW power by 7 wind farms, including state owned as well as private wind farms. Having Kanjikode wind farm with an installed capacity of 2.025 MW, Malayala Manorama Wind Farm with 10 MW installed capacity, Agali Wind Farm with 18.60 MW installed capacity, Ahalia wind farm with 8.40 MW and Inox wind farm with 16 MW installed capacity, Palakkad district is a major contributor of wind generated electric power in Kerala. Others include Ramakkelmedu wind farm at Idukki with an installed capacity of 14.25 MW and Kosamattom Wnd Farm at Kottayam with 1MW installed capacity.

Solar Power Generation by KSEBL: KSEBL generates a total of above 95.2 MW electricity by 11 solar farms and much more with policies that benefit private parties. Numerous short contributors are unidentified, but do contribute as it balances with the net usage of electricity. The Solar Power Projects by Hindalco, and those at Kanjikode and kollengode has an installed capacity of 1 MW each, while Edayar and Muvattupuzha projects has a capacity of 1.25 MW each. Projects at Pothencode and ANERT at Kuzhalmandam contributes 2 MW each, while Kochi Metro Rail Limited (KMRL) has an installed capacity of 2.67 MW. The largest contributors of solar power in Kerala are Renewable Power Corporation of Kerala (RPCK), Ambalakkara with an installed capacity of 50 MW and Cochin International Airport Limited (CIAL), Nedumbassery with an installed capacity of 29.03 MW. The Barapole Solar Power Project at Kannur district contributes 4 MW electric power.

Transmission:

The domestic Transmission system of KSEBL is divided into Southern Zone, headquartered in Thiruvananthapuram and Northern Zone, headquartered in Kozhikode each headed by chief engineers. The entire infrastructure, along with the System operations wing for the real time management of Kerala power system, headed by a chief engineer, headquartered at Kalamassery, comes under the Transmission SBU.

The infrastructure of Transmission SBU of KSEBL, consists of more than 418 substations across the state- five 400kV, seventeen 220kV, one hundred and twenty nine 110kV, eighty three 66kV, and one hundered and fourteen 33kV substations, with a total line length of 12845.55 Circuit Kilo Metre (CKm), and the State Load Dispatch Centre (SLDC) located at Kalamassery. The 400kV substations at Pallipuram-Thiruvananthapuram, Pallikara-Kochi, Palakkad, and Kozhikode are owned by Power Grid Corporation of India Limited (PGCIL), and remaining at Madakkathara and Thrissur is owned by KSEB.

The KSEBL power grid is connected to the national grid (southern region) through 400kV double circuit lines- (1) Udumalpett - Madakkathara (2) Tirunelveli – Trivandrum/ Pallippuram (3) Mysore – Kozhikode/ Areekode (4) Tirunelveli – Kochi lines.

The 2000 MW High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) station setup by Power Grid Corporation of India Limited (PGCIL), at Madakkathara as a part of Raigarh - Pugalur - Thrissur HDVC project is the first in Kerala and fourth in South India after Kolar, Vizag, and Pugalur.

The interstate transmission system consists of 6 lines at 220kV and 110kV levels.

220kV lines include 3 single circuit lines: Kaniyampetta – Kadakola; Idukki – Udumalpet; Sabarigiri – Theni and 1 double circuit line: Edamom – Tirunelveli. 110kV lines include Parassala – Kuzhithura and Manjeswaram – Konake lines.

Distribution:

The Distribution SBU of the KSEBL is governed as 4 sections – South, Central, North, and North Malabar, each headed by a chief engineer. The south region (Distribution South), headquartered at Thiruvananthapuram powers over 34.6L buildings. The central region (Distribution Central), headquartered at Ernakulam powers over 38.5L buldings. The North (Distribution North) and North Malabar (Distribution North Malabar) regions headquartered at Kozhikode and Kannur powers over 36.3L and 17.7L buildings respectively. KSEBL SBU – D distributes electricity through-out Kerala except in Thrissur Municipal Corporation area, Kannan Devan Hills (Munnar), and seven other areas of regional licenses, mainly Industrial Parks.

IT wing

IT wing of the KSEBL, headed by the CE, IT aims in the complete automation of the board, and operating in a paperless model, making the board one of the model utilities in the country. The aim is building a solid IT infrastructure, including data centres, DR, WAN interconnectivity, software development etc. Current projects are mostly under the Restructured Accelerated Power Developments Reforms Program (R-APDRP), funded by the Government of India through Power Finance Corporation (PFC). The program R-APDRP includes building Data Centre, WAN connectivity, Centralised Customer care centres (CCC), Web self-services; geographical information system, meter data management system, energy audit, network analysis; Asset, maintenance, and project management systems, Management information system; SCADA/Distribution management system (DMS); and disaster recovery centres. The governance structure for the KSEB IT wing is assisted by Deputy Chief Engineers and the operations is carried out under four major units – IT Computerisation unit and regional IT unit at Thiruvananthapuram, Regional IT Unit, Kochi and Calicut. The major projects of KSEB IT wing includes the billing software for consumers, ORUMA which has undergone major developments with added features, renamed to ORUMANET. The web portal ORUMAWEB provides the browser through running of the application, which enables customer service centres like Akshaya, Friends, etc. join the payment system of KSEBL. HRIS is a human resource management system by KSEB, a project that integrates payroll, PF, EIS with the Account Rendering Unit (ARU). HRIS by KSEB also includes modules to compute e-transfer, LPC generation, full-stack salary billings, credit statements, pension billing and disbursement billing, etc. The Account Rendering Unit (ARU), SARAS has been developed by the regional IT Unit at Kozhikode, integrated in HRIS. The supply chain management (SCM) software developed by the IT unit at Kochi, allows the store management, procurement, work creation, store pass creation, material allocation, allocation of material purchase to sections, work to work transfer of materials, work flow management, work reporting, requirement reporting, etc. An e-office software has been developed under the regional IT Unit, Calicut with the integration of SARAS and existing modules to turn into a paperless governance.

TransGrid 2.0

The TransGrid 2.0 is a revised long term transmission plan (LTTP), approved by the approved by the KSEB in 2016, in order to reduce the energy loss during bulk transmission of power from generating stations. TransGrid 2.0 accounts a long term vision for strengthening the infrastructure considering the raising demand for power, renewable source power generation, and the state’s large scale capacity addition plan and its integration to grid urges the hike in total power generated, stored, and transmitted. These along with major technological advancements required, TransGrid 2.0 is a revised version of development plan of KSEBL with a mission to enhance system reliability, reduction of loss, security, minimum disturbance to environment and public and a green vision of energy management. The project is funded by (Kerala Infrastructure Investment Fund Board) KIIFB.

Hydel Tourism

The aim of Kerala Hydel Tourism by KSEBL is to promote the tourism at various hydro-electric power projects and water reservoirs maintained by KSEB, keeping the ecological significance in the back stage and to improve the socio-economic status of remote area life. The operations are conducted under Kerala Hydel Tourism Centre, established in 1999, a sub of KSEBL. With it’s starting from Munnar and Wayanad, now KHTC operates in the districts of Thiruvananthapuram, Idukki, Wayanad, Thrissur, Kozhikode, and Malappuram

Other Activities

Promotion of Energy Conservation:

Besides the aim of providing round the clock and unfluctuating power supply to every corner of the state, KSEBL is a committed organisation to advice and help the consumers to adopt ways of energy conserving. For this, the board promotes the use of LED bulbs which are far more less energy consuming compared to TF bulbs and distributes the bulbs to the consumers under subsidy cost. In an aim to discourage irresponsible wastage of generated power, the board implemented a slab based tariff system in which the cost per unit varies based on the consumption of electricity.

Promotion of Green energy:

As a part of encouraging the publics and commercial consumers to use renewable energy source, the KSEBL advice the use of solar farms and solar cell roofing. The board will provide subsidy for the plantation or initial cost. On running, the board will become the client to purchase the surplus energy from the private party. People living within a 3 km sphere of KSEB substation are currently availed with the offer of client-ship of surplus energy.

Promotion of Electric vehicles:

On behalf of the state Government, KSEB works on making charging stations across the state of Kerala, so as to promote the public trying on electric vehicles. First phase of the project has been completed in the capital city, Thiruvananthapuram and many other districts. The second phase aims to hike the number of charging stations throughout the state. As a measure, proposals have been invited from interested private parties to start own charging stations. Recent efforts of the board in manufacturing E vehicles had been a news in this regard.

Promotion of cashless economy and E-governance:

Similar to every state controlled agencies in India, KSEB follows the promotion of cashless economy and advice the consumers to make easy payments using E banking or UPI or card payments. As a part of familiarising the system to the society, similar to every agencies, KSEB interacts with the consumers via E-mail, SMS and App based communication. The E governance is effectively being implemented and improved with the commissioning of effective ERP, HRM solutions as per the vision of KSEB IT wing.

Power Tariff

Kerala State Electricity Board bills the consumers for fixed charges, meter rent, electricity duty, fuel surcharge, energy charge, and applicable local taxes. Entertaining conserved use of energy, KSEB has a slab system of levying and have two major charge slabs- consumption less than 250 units and above 250 units. Single phase consumers with consumption below 250 units have a telescopic charging system in which the charge per unit counts for every 50 units consumed. Surpassing 250 units per month the slab rate will be applicable for entire units of electricity, consumed.