Floating Solar Plant of Uttar Pradesh

• 17 Sep 2022

Why In News?

• On September 15, 2022, power generation started from a 20 MW floating solar plant at NTPC at Dibiyapur in Auraiya district of Uttar Pradesh after a multi-phase investigation. This has taken the total capacity of NTPC Auraiya plant to 704 MW.

Key Points

• NTPC Additional General Manager Sanjay Balyan said that this floating solar plant is the first in the state. NTPC has so far installed floating solar plants on reservoirs in four states - Ramagundam in Telangana, Kayamkulam in Kerala, Kawas in Gujarat and Semadri in Andhra Pradesh.
• NTPC had invited tenders for the floating solar plant at Auraiya in September 2019. The company that received the tender started work on the solar plant in June 2020. In August 2022, the solar plant was ready. After this, the testing and commissioning work was completed.
• Solar panels of 500 watt capacity have been used at NTPC at Dibiyapur. The total cost of the floating solar plant is around Rs 90 crore.
• An on-ground solar plant of 20 MW capacity has been installed at NTPC plant premises at a cost of about Rs.100 crore. 330 MW solar panel modules have been installed in the solar plant on the ground. Commercial power generation from this plant has been started in three phases (in the first phase eight MW on November 10, 2020, seven MW on December 4, 2020, and five MW on February 20, 2021) by grid connectivity.
• Now commercial power generation has started from Dibiyapur floating solar plant. With this, the generation capacity of the solar plant has increased to 40 MW. NTPC has also set up a 664 MW gas and naphtha power generation plant at Auraiya. Thus, the total capacity of NTPC Auraiya plant has increased to 704 MW.
• According to NTPC officials, the power generated from gas and naphtha-based plants ranges from Rs 5 to Rs 20 per unit. Electricity generated from solar will be Rs 3.02 per unit.