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MNRE exploring floating solar plants potential

In an effort to avoid hurdles related to availability of land for setting up of solar power plants, the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) is exploring the potential of setting up floating solar power plants in the country and has given approval for a year-long nationwide study to gauge the potential of such power plants, starting this April, an official told ICMW.

Already, a 100-kW floating solar power plant has been commissioned as a pilot project at a waterbody beside Eco Park at Newtown in Kolkata.

Another pilot project of a 1-MW solar power plant has been commissioned on an irrigation canal 80 km away from Ahmedabad.

“Riding on the success of these two pilot projects, more floating projects have been initiated in Maharashtra (20 MW), Kerala (55 MW), Manipur and Tripura,” said Shantipada Gon Chowdhury, Solar Group member of MNRE, who would be heading this study as well.

All the projects in the above mentioned four states are at a detailed project report (DPR) stage, he said.

The study is part of an initiative to sustain the Government of India’s renewable energy mission to create 100,000 MW of solar power generation capacity in the country by 2022, Chowdhury said.

Out of this 1 lakh MW, 40,000 MW would be generated on rooftops. The balance 60,000 MW would be distributed among land and land-neutral platforms. Waterbodies and canals are two land neutral venues for solar plants.

But the setting up of solar power plants on land could become a difficult proposition considering the fact that availability of land is a major issue in the country. As per a thumb rule, 4 acres are needed to generate 1 MW solar power.

Chowdhury said, “The problem is that this quantity of land might be available mostly in a handful of states. Forest and agricultural land are mostly available in other states which would not be suitable for this kind of power plants. Therefore, this study would concentrate mostly on waterbodies, marshy land and irrigation canals. The space department would provide satellite images of waterbodies, marshy land and canals and after that analysis would be done.”

According to Chowdhury’s estimate, while a floating plant involves an average expenditure of Rs 8 crore to generate I MW power, land-based solar power plants would need around Rs 7 crore for each 1 MW of generation on an average.

“But this slightly higher cost of floating project would be compensated in terms of actual generation. On average, 1 MW floating plant could generate 2 million units while the same powered land based plant would generate roughly 1.7 million units,” he said.

According to Chowdhury, the ministry has plans to set up four floating solar projects in Kerala with a combined capacity of 55 MW that would use irrigation reservoirs. Of the four, two plants will have a capacity of 15 MW each, while others will have a capacity of 20 MW and 5 MW each. All four are under in the DPR stage.

Two more floating solar power plants of 10 MW each proposed to be set up in Maharashtra by Maharashtra State Power Generation Company (Mahagenco). These plants would become operational by 2017.

In addition, floating solar plants are being planned on Loktak Lake in Manipur and Rudrasagar Lake in Tripura, he said, adding, the projects in Manipur and Tripura are also at DPR stage.

“The Loktak project would be set up in such a way that livelihood of local fishermen would not be affected,” he said.

Chowdhury said 2015-16 could be termed as a preparatory year for floating solar plants and 2016-17 could see commissioning of such plants with a combined capacity of 75 MW.