A floating solar thermal power plant conceptualised and implemented indigenously will be inaugurated next week at Rajarhat near Kolkata. The pilot project has 10 KW capacity.
The experimental project, the first such floating solar power plant in the country, has been promoted by the Union Ministry of Renewable Energy and conceptualised by city-based Arka Renewable Energy College.
The power generated would be supplied to the West Bengal State Electricity Development Corporation Ltd. The plant has been set up at a water body provided by the New Town Kolkata Development Authority.
The former chief of the West Bengal Renewable Energy Development Agency, S.P. Gonchaudhuri, said such projects had the potential of solving the land availability problem that a solar power project faces.
“India has a target of installing one lakh MW of solar power by 2030... but the challenge is to find the over five lakh acres that this will need... the floating solar plant could help address this issue,” he said.
Such solar plants have higher efficiency.
