What is in news : The National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) Limited on August 21, 2021, commissioned India’s largest floating solar PV project of 25MW on the reservoir of its Simhadri thermal station in Vishakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh.

Details :

• Floating solar reduces temperature related losses due to the cooling effect of water they float on, reduce evaporation rate of water bodies and have lower maintenance costs.
• NTPC’s floating solar installation covers 75 acres of the Simhadri reservoir’s surface.
• It will produce power from more than a lakh of solar PV modules for lighting 7,000 households.
• The project will annually save 46,000 tonnes of CO2 emission and 1,364 million litres of water, which is adequate to meet the requirement of 6,700 households in a year.
• The floating solar plant is part of the coal-burning behemoth’s plan to turn green by adding a 60 gigawatts renewable energy capacity by 2032.
• It is also the first solar project to be set up under the power ministry’s 2018 ‘flexibilisation’ scheme allowing generators to supply power from any of their sources, based on plant efficiency, to reduce discoms’ cost.

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What are floating solar plants:

• Floating solar plants is the installation of photovoltaic panels on the water bodies such as lakes, basins, rivers, sea, ocean, etc as an alternative to land-based solar projects.
• Floating solar projects are found to be beneficial at countering challenges of land acquisition, grid connectivity, regulations. Floating solar projects aid in reducing water evaporation, interconnectivity costs, suppressing algae blooming.
• The cooling effect of the water bodies further enhances the performance of solar panels by 5 to 10 per cent.

About NTPC Limited

• Established in 1975, NTPC Limited, formerly known as National Thermal Power Corporation Limited is India’s largest energy conglomerate that aims at accelerating the power generation sector in India.
• NTPC has become a Maharatna company in May 2010. It is headquartered in New Delhi.
• NTPC’s initiative of installing floating solar plants across India aims at increasing its green energy production up to 30 per cent and reducing carbon footprints.