Vizhinjam port is located 16 km south of Kerala’s capital, Thiruvananthapuram on the West coast of India.

The site offers the following unique advantages

• Proximity to international shipping route and East-West shipping axis
• Availability of 20 m contour within a nautical mile off the coast. Minimal littoral drift along the coast and therefore hardly any maintenance dredging
• Immediacy to national/regional road, rail network
• Flexibility in design and expansion being Greenfield project close to Thiruvananthapuram city that has an International airport, human resource and social infrastructure

The Project

Buoyant International container trade and growth in container traffic in India at a CAGR of 14 percent during the last decade has led to a trend towards agglomeration (increased vessel sizes on order). This necessitates the establishment of an international transshipment terminal close to southern tip of Indian peninsula and the proposed terminal will be ideal for attracting mother vessels ranging from Post-Panamax to Malaccamax in a phased manner.

Detailed traffic assessment study indicates that Vizhinjam could be configured to meet these transshipment requirements of the region.

A container shipment economic study has further established the above for routing of containers economically.

Wave Energy

Vizhinjam fishing harbour is the site of a unique demonstrations plant that converts sea wave energy to elecricity and is given to the local grid. This plant is based on the oscillating water column (OWC) principle. A caisson was constructed in December 1990 at Vizhinjam and two generations of power modules have been tested as of today. The plant was first commissioned in October 1991. The physical processes in the energy conversion are understood to a much greater extent, leading to a threefold increase in absolute power from the plant.

At present, more than 80% cost of the wave energy plant is due to civil construction (concrete caissons). Considerable cost savings can be obtained using the concept of multi-functional breakwaters wherein a power module forms an incremental addition to a caisson breakwater. It is proposed to demonstrate the utility of this concept with the design and construction of a breakwater with a number of power modules.