The Kerala government on Monday inked a memorandum of understanding with National Hydroelectric Power Corporation (NHPC) for setting up an 82MW wind farm at Mannarcaud taluk in Palakkad district. As per the agreement, NHPC would set up wind power generating units on 500 acres of land at Mannarcaud on ‘build own operate and transfer’ (BOOT) mode and manage it for a period of 25 years. The Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB) would purchase the power generated at rates fixed by the Kerala State Electricity Regulatory Commission. Announcing the government initiative, power minister Aryadan Mohammed said that the first set of wind farms would come up at Kottathara and Nallasingam in Mannarcaud taluk. The government would hand over more land at Agaly, Kottathara, Sholayar and Puthur to NHPC as soon as the on-going survey by the revenue department and Agency for Non-conventional Energy and Rural Technology (Anert) is completed. Apart from the 5% profit of the project spread across their land, tribal people in the project area would continue to enjoy the ownership of their land. The investment per MW of wind power project was estimated as Rs 6 crore, the minister said. The project is expected to be commissioned in two years. The state government decidedtoexploitwindenergy to the maximum after a study by Anert and Centre for Wind Energy Technology had identified several areas in the state conducive for setting up wind power units. NHPC director (personnel) R S Meena and state power department additional chief secretary Nivedita P Haran signed the agreement. Meanwhile, in a bid to improve the tender process for power purchase, the KSEB entered into an agreement with Central Power Research Institute (CPRI) here on Monday. As part of the deal, the vendor inspection and third party inspection of the power purchase agreements of the board would be done by CPRI. KSEB chairman M Sivasankar and CPRI director general N Murugesan signed the deal. TNN