Floating Solar Power Plant Pilot Project Given Go Ahead in India
by Matthew McDermott, New York, NY
Image: Sunengy
You’ve no doubt heard of offshore wind power, how about offshore solar power? Well, Australian solar power company Sunengy would like you to, or at least floating solar power–announcing that it has partnered with India’s Tata Power to build a pilot project for a floating solar power plant there.
Construction of the pilot plant in India will commence in August this year…Sunergy plans to set up a larger [Liquid Solar Array] in the NSW Hunter Valley in middle of 2012 before going into full production.
Here’s how Sunergy touts the benefits of its liquid solar array technology:
The LSA uses traditional Concentrated Photovoltaic (CPV) technology – a lens and a small area of solar cells that tracks the sun throughout the day, like a sunflower. Floating the LSA on water reduces the need for expensive supporting structures to protect it from high winds. The lenses submerge in bad weather and the water also cools the cells which increases their efficiency and life-span.
LSA In Action from Sticky Advertising on Vimeo.
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1 Response to “Floating Solar Power Plant Pilot Project Given Go Ahead in India”
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Dr.A.Jagadeesh said on Thursday, May 26, 2011, 20:22
Good to know of SOLAR FLOATING PROJECT..
There is an ENERGY ISLAND which utilises solar,wind,OTEC in an integrated way.
The Energy Island designed by Dominic Michaelis would have an OTEC plant at its center, but spread across the 2,000-foot-wide (600-meter-wide) platform would also be wind turbines and solar collectors. Additionally, wave energy converters and sea current turbines would capture energy from water moving around the structure.
One of these hexagonally-shaped islands could generate 250 megawatts (enough power for a small city)according to Dominic Michaelis. Even more power is possible by mooring together several Energy Islands into a small archipelago that could include greenhouses for food, a small harbor for ships and a hotel for tourists.
The principle reason to build an Energy Island is to harvest OTEC.
“The advantage of OTEC over other marine energy technologies is that it’s constant, 24 hours a day and all year round”,Dominic Michael feels..
This is because it is based not on the sun or the wind or the waves, but on the temperature difference between warm water at the sun-heated surface and cold water in the deep, dark ocean.
The biggest temperature differences can be found in tropical seas, where the surface water is around 80 degrees Fahrenheit (25 degrees Celsius).
This warm water is drawn in from around the Energy Island and used to evaporate a working fluid, which might be seawater or ammonia. The resulting vapor pushes a turbine that produces electricity.
To condense the vapor back to fluid, cold water at about 40 degrees Fahrenheit (5 degrees Celsius) is pumped up from a half mile below the surface. This condensation creates a pressure drop that helps suck more vapor through the turbine blades.
The same basic process occurs in a coal-fired or nuclear power plant, but the temperature difference between water boilers and cooling towers is much greater than in an OTEC system.
Dr.A.Jagadeesh Nellore (AP), India