NTPC, the country’s largest power generator with an installed capacity of over 66,885 MW, is on course to commissioning India’s biggest floating solar power plant of 100 MW capacity at Ramagundam in Telangana.

This could trigger a wave of floating solar power projects across various water bodies, lakes, reservoirs and river systems of Godavari and Narmada.

The coal mining firm, Singareni Collieries Company, located closeby, is also planning a 300 MW floating solar plant at Maniar dam.

Sunil Kumar, Chief General Manager, NTPC Ramagundam and Telangana NTPC, told BusinessLine , “NTPC is focussing on renewable energy and as a part of this, we are constructing a 100 MW Floating Solar photovoltaic project at Ramagundam on a 450-acre water body of the 800-acre reservoir.”

“This is the largest in this segment and has the potential to trigger a wave of similar projects. The reservoirs on Godavari river have huge potential as this bypasses the requirement of land acquisition for solar project. We have received interest for a similar project on Narmada and enquiries from abroad,” he said.

The ₹423-crore project, being executed by BHEL, will see supply of about 40 MW of merchant power from September and all of 100 MW before the end of the year. The project got delayed due to Covid lockdown and supply disruptions.

“We are setting up two other floating solar projects in south at Simhadri plant of 25 MW and Kayamkulam plant of 92 MW,” he said.

NTPC has become India’s first energy company to declare its energy compact goals as part of the UN High-level Dialogue on Energy and is looking to install 60 GW of renewable energy capacity by 2032.

“We are also evaluating battery back-up for round the clock power and another project on the reservoir at Ramagundam, which can potentially have a capacity of 120 MW, with more advanced modules,” he said.

This will be one of the largest single location floating solar project on natural reservoir with water from Sri Ram Sagar project on Godavari river.

Solar blocks

The project will have forty 2.5 MW arrays of solar blocks with each array having about 12,000 Solar PV panels along with one set of transformer, inverter and switch gear panel. The project will have 4,70,000 solar panels with over 10 lakh pieces of HDPE floats. The unique features of this project is that all components, including transformer, inverter and switch gear panels, will be afloat on a cement cast platform. A 33 KV underground cabling system measuring 2.5 kms will be laid for power evacuation from the reservoir to 400 KV switch yard.

Floating solar units are emerging as an alternative to conventional ground-mounted PV systems. These conserve water through reduction of evaporation, increased generation due to cooling effect on the panels and reduce installation time.

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