SWELECT Energy Systems has built and commissioned India’s largest floating solar energy plant in Kayankulam, Kerala for NTPC. The plant was commissioned in a span of 22 days. The floating photovoltaic (PV) system consists of a floater platform and other components of a PV system.
Compared to ground-mounted solar PV systems, floating solar PV power plants harness solar energy with greater efficiency without consuming land area. To reduce the cost of the system, a collaborative indigenous floater development project has been taken up by NETRA along with the Central Institute for Plastic Engineering and Technology, Chennai. NETRA, NTPC and SWELECT Energy Systems have worked jointly on this programme.
The key benefits of the plant are as follows:
- No land required, hence, no land cost/availability/acquisition issues nor any uprooting of trees.
- Reduced evaporation of water and algae growth in water bodies.
- Increased generation because of the cooling effect on PV panels (water is at cooler temperatures when the atmospheric air is hot). The per day generation could be around 5.7 kWh/kWp).
- Reduced installation time as compared to ground-mounted systems.
- PV modules remain free of dust to a large extent, resulting in low maintenance in terms of cleaning.
The PV modules used in the plant have the following features:
- Make: SWELECT-HHV Solar, 72 cells poly C-Si, each of 315 Wp.
- Quantity: Total no. 324; 102.6 kWp DC capacity.
- Efficiency: >16.3 per cent.
