Tata Power to build India's first floating solar plant

Tata Power today said it will be building the country's first low-cost, high-efficiency floating solar plant in partnership with an Australian company which invented the technology.

Sunengy, the Australian company, and Tata Power will begin constructing from August this year a pilot plant, that uses the Liquid Solar Array (LSA) technology, a press release issued in Mumbai said.

LSA uses traditional concentrated photovoltaic technology but rather than mounting the cells on a frame, it is made to float on water, making it low-cost, cyclone-proof and less tedious as it does not involve any land acquisition, it added.

"It effectively turns a dam into a very large battery, offering free solar storage and opportunity for improved water resource management," the inventor of the technology and Sunengy's executive director and chief Technology officer, Phil Connor, said.

Tata Power's executive director, Banmali Agrawala, confirmed the tie-up for the "nascent technology" and said this is a part of the company's effort to invest in clean and eco-friendly technologies.