India's Largest Floating Solar Power Project Commissioned

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India’s Largest Floating Solar Power Project- Relevance for UPSC Exam

India’s Largest Floating Solar Power Project: India’s Largest Floating Solar Power Project was commissioned recently. India’s Largest Floating Solar Power Project will promote renewable energy and help in countering the global warming. India’s Largest Floating Solar Power Project is part of UPSC Mains GS Paper 3 (Indian Economy- Infrastructure: Energy, Ports, Roads, Airports, Railways etc.)

India’s Largest Floating Solar Power Project in News

Recently, India’s Largest Floating Solar Power Project Commissioned by NTPC at Ramagundam, Telangana. 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 00:00 hours of July 01, 2022.

India’s Largest Floating Solar Power Project

About: Ramagundam Floating Solar PV Project is a 100MW solar power project of NTPC, located in Ramagundam, Telangana.
- The 100-MW Floating Solar project at Ramagundam is endowed with advanced technology as well as environment friendly features.
Funding: India’s Largest Floating Solar Power Project is Constructed with financial implication of Rs. 423 crores through M/s BHEL as EPC (Engineering, Procurement and Construction) contract.
Construction: 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.

How does Floating Solar Power Project works?

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 33KV 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.

Key Benefits of the Solar Power Projects

No land use change and Displacement: From environment point of view, the most obvious advantage is minimum land requirement mostly for associated evacuation arrangements.
Water Conservation: with the presence of floating solar panels, the evaporation rate from water bodies is reduced, thus helping in water conservation.
- Approximately 32.5 lakh cubic meters per year water evaporation can be avoided.
Improves Efficiency: The water body underneath the solar modules helps in maintaining their ambient temperature, thereby improving their efficiency and generation.
Reduced Coal Consumption: Similarly, while coal consumption of 1,65,000 Tons can be avoided per year; Co2 emission of 2,10,000 tons per year can be avoided.

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