With respect to the recent study and report was conducted in collaboration with the Indo-German cooperation on innovative solar. This report highlights the huge potential for floating solar PV in India. India is a growing country and the potential to explore everything is highly diversified and the scopes are huge.?
With the same mindset, a study was conducted to evaluate the current capacity potential and simultaneously reflect the future possibility for solar installations from the year 2024 - 2040.?
The Methodology for the Report
- ?According to a recent paper produced under the Indo-German Technical Cooperation on Innovative Solar (IN Solar) some key factors were highlighted.
- Inland still water bodies in India have the technical capacity to support 206.7 GWp of floating solar PV power.
- In order to determine the floating potential of solar panels, the researchers employed the GIS-based data for all waterbodies in India (measured in sq km) by referring to the European Commission's Copernicus Programme.
- Water bodies with a usable size larger than 0.015 sq km and a 12-month water availability were included in the data collection.
- Water Bodies located in protected zones were not included in this data.
- An area of 0.015 sq km is required to install 1 MW of floating PV.
- Since covering 100% of the water body area negatively impacts aquatic life and biodiversity, the team thought that up to 40% of the space may be used for FPV installation.
- The group then refined the data set by taking into account only those waterbodies that had a daily global horizontal irradiance (GHI) of more than 3 kWh/m2 at a distance of less than 25 km from the substation (132 kV).
After looking into all the nitty and gritty of it, the study reported approx 3,101 sq km of suitable water body areas, that were suitable for supporting floating solar potential of 206.7 GWp. Notably, Madhya Pradesh observed the highest potential with 40,117 MWp. Likewise, the same was observed in Maharashtra with 32,076 MWp capacity.
Initiatives and Funding of the Project
- The project was earlier started under the directions and supervision of the Indian Ministry of New and Renewable Energy.
- Furthermore, this project is supported and pushed ahead with the help of? Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit GmbH (GIZ)
- This project has been led by Ernst and Young LLP (EY LLP), with partners Fraunhofer ISE (Germany) and CSTEP.
- In order to expedite the process of supporting the project of solar PV applications in India, the project intends to investigate the possibility of new and innovative solar applications (NISA) with lower land consumption.
Future Prospects & Projections
- Under the subtle conditions, the project aims to install a cumulative floating solar capacity of 30GW from 2024 - 2040 in India.
- For this project, a capital expenditure of (CAPEX), of INR5.7 Crore per MW for a floating PV plant is expected. This will further result the equalised cost of electricity of INR 4.32 per Kilowatt-hour (kwh).
- Furthermore, the project team estimates a gradual decline in the cost of electricity, supported with an annual decline of 2.5% in CAPEX.
- The LOCE is expected to reduce down to below INR 3.72 kw/h and further cost reduction by 2024.
