Odisha will be having the states first floating solar power plant. The location for the plant has been confirmed at Hirakud Dam in the Sambalpur district.
This came after NTPC successfully commissioned India’s largest Floating Solar PV plant at Simhadri, Andhra Pradesh.
The survey has been done for the pilot floating Solar Power plant project with construction to start soon. After the commissioning of the first phase, the plant will produce 40MW power. This will to an extent meet the power requirement of the state.
The solar modules will be installed in such a manner that they won’t need any shifting in case the water level of the dam increases or decreases. The execution of the project will be done by Solar Energy Corporation of India Limited (SECI). SECI is a CPSU under the administrative control of the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE).
The power generated by the project will be purchased by the Grid Corporation of Odisha (GRIDCO), A substation for regulation and looking over will be set up at Kantapali in Bargarh district.
As per reports, a survey of 10 square kilometres of the dam has already been completed, of which the project will come up in 1 square kilometre.
The estimated investment in the project is around Rs 200 crore. Odisha Water Resource and the Energy Department has agreed to it.
“Given the vast water mass Hirakud dam has, we can get renewable solar energy by installing solar panels,” said Anand Chandra Sahu, chief engineer of Hirakud Dam.
It is pertinent to mention here that there were three main reasons behind the construction of Hirakud Dam – mitigation of flood, irrigation and power generation.
While the dam has 275 MW power generation capacity, only 70 MW of power is being produced for various reasons.
“Evaporation loss is more than the industrial use of water from the dam. If the solar panels are installed, the evaporation loss can be minimised,” said Sahu.
Reference: odishatv.in