In a home-grown engineering success story amidst the flood ravage, one of the largest floating solar power plants in the country at Banasura Sagar dam in Wayanad has managed to survive the extreme conditions in the reservoir during last month’s heavy rains.
KSEB officials said that though they feared that the 500 kWp (kilowatt peak) project floating on 1.25 acres of water surface of the reservoir could get submerged due to the presence of strong waves in the reservoir, the structure has stood its ground and continue to generate electricity.
“We had real concern about the floating solar plant as the waves were as high as 40-50cm, especially on August 8 and 9. But the floating structures have withstood the fury,” said P Manoharan, assistant executive engineer (research and dam safety sub-division) at Banasura Sagar.
Officials of Thiruvananthapuram-based Adtech Systems Ltd, which had implemented the project, said that though the water level variations in the reservoir were above the design parameters of the plant, the anchoring systems ensured that the ferrocement floats and the solar panels installed on top of it were intact.
Source: indiatimes
