Thailand to put world’s largest floating solar farm into use this June
The facility, which generates power on a water surface of 72 hectares, was originally scheduled for operation in December last year, but the launch was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Bangkok : State-run Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (Egat) expects to operate a 45-megawatt floating solar farm it claims to be the largest in the world this June.
Egat signed a contract with B.Grimm Power Plc, which will serve as an engineering, procurement and construction firm to develop photovoltaic panels worth 842 million baht (28 million USD) on Sirindhorn Dam in Ubon Ratchathani, where an Egat hydropower plant is operating.
The floating solar farm is designed to be a hybrid system, working in tandem with 36MW of hydropower generation to increase optimisation capacity.
The facility, which generates power on a water surface of 72 hectares, was originally scheduled for operation in December last year, but the launch was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Local media quoted Chatchai Mawong, Egat’s director for hydro and renewable energy power plant development, as saying that construction is now 82 percent complete. Workers began installing the first lot of floating solar panels in December 2020 and are speeding up installation.
Under the 2018 National Power Development Plan, Egat is committed to building more floating solar farms on all nine of its dams nationwide over the next 20 years, with a combined capacity of 2,725MW.
It is also planning to adopt a modern energy management and energy storage systems, crucial to store electricity produced by solar panels./.
