The Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL), a Government of India undertaking, has floated a tender for the design and supply of a solar floatation platform of 22 MW capacity.

The floating solar system will be installed at Rajiv Gandhi Combined Cycle Power Project (RGCCPP) at Kayamkulam in Kerala.

Apart from the design and supply, the scope of work also includes the inclusion of accessories with mooring and anchoring on which the project will be constructed. The last date for the submission of bids is January 16, 2020.

In this tender, the vendor must supply floats and float accessories to fix 95,460 PV modules.

According to BHEL, lighting arrester and search circuit breaker (SCB) platforms will be an integral part of the overall floating platform. Apart from this, the successful bidder will also have to consider the dynamics of the items while designing the project. The PV modules must be mounted at a fixed angle of 5-degree.

Further, each floater unit used in the project must be warranted against crack, puncture, and breakage for which the bidder must assure for the integrity of the entire system for 25 years.

All accessories and anchoring systems of the floating unit must be designed to withstand base wind speed of 140 km/hr. The floatation unit should be manufactured from appropriate thermoplastic (virgin material) with UV stabilizer such that the floatation device can sustain for 25 years.

According to the tender document, a manufacturer should have manufactured, supplied, and commissioned solar PV floaters of a minimum capacity of 100 kWp at a single location. Besides this, the bidder should have executed purchase orders of a cumulative value of ₹30 million (~$417,281) in the last three years.

The water body available is spread across 170 acres of land within the premises of the project.

In December 2019, BHEL had issued a tender for conducting a detailed survey for a proposed 22 MW floating solar project in Kerala.

NTPC had floated a tender for the development of this project in 2018.

States, where land availability for the development of utility-scale solar projects is a challenge, prefer floating solar power projects.

According to Mercom India’s Solar Project Tracker, the state of Kerala has ~90 MW of installed solar capacity and has around 120 MW under the development pipeline. Out of this, the cumulative capacity of 100 MW is floating solar projects.

Image Credit: Inalvis Alvarez Fernandez. – U.S. DoE [Public domain]