Tata Power Solar Systems Limited has commissioned a floating solar power project on a 350-acre water body at backwaters area in Kayamkulam, Kerala. The project has an installed capacity of 101.6 MWp. This installation was completed within the stipulated period despite numerous challenges from issues like ranging water depths, high sea tides, and severe water salinity were faced during the construction period.
Tata Power Solar successfully developed a scaffolding platform on the water body to construct an entire solar plant float on water. This plant boasts a floating inverter platform having a 5MW capacity. The entire project is anchored to the waterbed of Kerala backwater using 134 cast pile foundations that are bored to a depth of 20 meters underwater to support the central monitoring and control stations and the 33/220 kilovolts switchyard.
The entire array comprises of floats and solar panel modules that must be towed for 3 kilometers on 15 meters deep sea-linked national waterways. This exposes the solar modules to high winds and gushing tides that often reaches to height of about 3.5 meters. To operationalize the project, Tata Power Solar ‘s execution team was successfully able to synchronize the 33/220 kilovolts air insulated substation with 220 kilovolts existing gas insulated substation.
