BHEL commissions 5.4 MWp floating solar plant in West Bengal

The floating solar plant is located in the Murshidabad district of West Bengal. It is built upon a raw water pond of the Sagardighi thermal power project owned by The West Bengal Power Development Corp. Ltd (WBPDCL).

June 10, 2021 Uma Gupta

Exploring floating solar is crucial for India to stay on track to meet the ambitious "100 GW by 2022" solar target.

Image: Thomas Roche/ Flickr

State-owned engineer Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL), India’s biggest floating solar EPC player, has commissioned a 5.4 MWp floating solar plant in the Indian State of West Bengal. The plant has been commissioned for The West Bengal Power Development Corp. Ltd (WBPDCL). It is built upon a raw water pond (number 3) at the Sagardighi Thermal Power Project owned by WBPDCL in the Murshidabad district.

French floating PV specialist Ciel & Terre completed the plant engineering, float supply, anchoring and mooring, and supervision of the 5.4 MWp floating solar plant.

The plant uses a solar array consisting of 16,880 number of 320Wp BHEL-make PV modules over an area of 10.22 hectares. Hydrelio Equato floats, locally manufactured under ‘Make in India’ campaign, are used to support the panels.

“This plant will supply competitively priced electricity to around 1,000 homes and avoid more than 5838 tons of CO2 emissions. With the 5.4MWp plant, WBPDCL can save over 48 million liters of water from evaportaion, which can be used during the cooling water requirement in summers,” stated Deepak Ushadevi, managing director of Ciel & Terre.

Following the successful commissioning of the 5.4 MWp floating solar plant, WBPDCL has issued tenders for two floating solar projects, 10 MW at Sagardighi thermal power plant and 5 MW at Singareni thermal power plant.

Ciel & Terre commissioned its first pilot 452 KWp project at CIAL Cochin in 2019, followed by installation of a 14.7 MWp floating solar project in May 2021. Currently, it is executing a mega floating project of the size of 75 MWp in South India, with Hydrelio floats produced at Kerala factory. This year, the company also launched a global R&D center in Bangalore for innovative engineering and new product development activities.

The article was amended on June 11, 2021 to amend the commissioned capacity.

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