Over the past few years, solar energy has received a huge boost. A great example of this is a massive, floating solar power plant being built in India. Indian National Hydro Power Corporation (NHPC) is planning a 50 MW photovoltaic project that will be the world’s largest freshwater floating solar power plant.
Creatively using the space, India has already installed 10 megawatt solar plants on top of many canals. Now, India has taken it one step further and plans to build the world’s largest floating solar power plant on one of the large stretches of water in Kerala, India.
More about this floating solar power plant:
NHPC plans to float this 50MW planton a 1.27 million square meter floating platform-by the end of this year. There are large stretches of water bodies in Kerala and NHPC is going to make the good use of it. Each station would cover about 3,000 square feet [914 square meters] of space for generating 20 KW of power.
Experts calculated the approximate cost of the project would be about $64-$72 million. They also found that infrastructure costs and the unit cost of energy production for this floating solar power plant will be about 15% lower than land-based projects. This way, the government and energy company developers are saving both cash and valuable real estate.
Solar panels when installed on a floating platform also overcome the heating problem as the solar panels installed on land face reduction of yield when the ground heats up.
