Floating Solar Power Project
India's largest floating Solar Power Project is now fully operational. NTPC declared Commercial Operation of the final part capacity of 20 MW out of 100 MW Ramagundam Floating Solar PV Project at Ramagundam, Telangana with effect from July 01, 2022.
With the operationalisation of 100 MW Solar PV Project at Ramagundam, total commercial operation of Floating Solar Capacity in Southern Region rose to 217 MW. Earlier, NTPC declared Commercial operation of 92 MW Floating Solar at Kayamkulam (Kerala) and 25 MW Floating Solar at Simhadri (Andhra Pradesh).
Floating Solar Project at Ramagundam
The 100-MW Floating Solar project at Ramagundam is endowed with advanced technology as well as environment friendly features. Constructed with financial implication of Rs. 423 crores through BHEL as EPC (Engineering, Procurement and Construction) contract, the project spreads over 500 acres of its reservoir.
Divided into 40 blocks, each having 2.5 MW, each block consists of one floating platform and an array of 11,200 solar modules. The floating platform consists of one Inverter, Transformer, and a HT breaker. The solar modules are placed on floaters manufactured with HDPE (High Density Polyethylene) material.
The entire floating system is being anchored through special HMPE (High Modulus Polyethylene) rope to the dead weights placed in the balancing reservoir bed. The power is being evacuated up to the existing switch yard through 33 KV underground cables.
This project is unique in the sense that all the electrical equipment including inverter, transformer, HT panel and SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) are also on floating ferro cement platforms. The anchoring of this system is bottom anchoring through dead weight concrete blocks.
Floating solar plants have several advantages:
- Utilization of water body and saving of land resource
- Reduced water loss due to evaporation
- Possibility of higher generation due to cooling effect on the solar modules, etc