India's Biggest Floating Solar Power Plant To Be Commissioned By May

India's biggest floating solar plant till date is being developed in Telangana's Ramagundam and is likely to be commissioned by May this year. It is one of the solar plants being developed by the energy conglomerate NTPC, which is all set to commission around 217 MW floating solar capacity in the next few months.

The other renewable energy plants that are likely to be commissioned this year are 92 MW floating unit at Kayamkulam gas plant in Kerala and 25 MW unit at Simhadri power plant.

NTPC is in the process of setting up around 450 MW of solar power capacity, of which 230 MW ground mounted solar power plant in Ettayapuram near Tuticorin in Tamil Nadu will be set up by 2022.

The company would have already implemented these floating solar projects, it, however, got delayed due to the COVID-19 lockdown.

The floating solar photovoltaic (PV) project at NTPC Ramagundam will be spread over a water surface area of 450 acres in the reservoir. The project will see an investment of Rs 430 crore.

Apart from this, the company which has a total installed capacity of about 9,125 MW of NTPC's total capacity of 64,880 MW, including joint ventures, is in the process of implementing two 800 MW coal-fired thermal power projects in Ramagundam. The phase-I of the project will be commissioned by January 2022 and the second phase by March 2022.

The company has successfully completed pilot projects in Kayamkulam of 100 kWh and Kawas of one MW and are now implementing larger projects.