Tata Power Solar commissions India's largest floating solar power project

Tata Power Solar Systems, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Tata Power, has accomplished a remarkable feat by commissioning India's largest floating solar power project in Kayamkulam, Kerala on a 350-acre water body, backwaters area, having an installed capacity of 101.6 Megawatt Peak.

This installation was completed within the stipulated period, despite the arduous challenges of variable water depths, high sea tides, and severe water salinity concerns faced throughout the project's construction duration.

Tata Power Solar successfully built a scaffolding platform on the water body to make the entire solar plant float on water. This project is the first one in the Floating Solar Photovoltaic (FSPV) through Power Purchase Agreement category. This plant boasts a floating inverter platform having a 5 Megawatt (MW) capacity. The large-scale installation and commissioning of this 101.6 MWp capacity solar plant have been the fastest in the FSPV category, with ready a Commercial Operation Date (CoD) certification, which means the project has been nodded as complete and operational. The entire project is anchored to the waterbed of Kerala backwater using 134 cast pile foundations that are bored to a depth of 20 meters underwater to support the Central Monitoring and Control Stations (CMCS) and the 33/220 kilovolts switchyard. All this was done by dredging soil strata underwater, wherein the high groundwater was also a deterrent.

The entire array involving floats and solar panel modules had to be towed for 3 kilometers on a sea-linked National waterway, which was 15 meters deep, exposing the solar modules to high winds and gushing tides often reaching a height of about 3.5 meters. To operationalize the project, Tata Power Solar 's execution team was successfully able to synchronize the 33/220 Kilovolts Air Insulated Substation (AIS) with 220 Kilovolts existing Gas Insulated Substation (GIS)

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