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December 26, 2014Solar Rooftop India
India is looking to aggressively increase the installations of solar rooftop plants on water canals crisscrossing the country. India had built its first 1 MW solar canal rooftop plant in Gujarat, when the current PM Modi was the CM of the province. This plant had proved to be enormously successful as it had multiple advantages over normal ground based solar power plants:
1) Reduced water evaporation from the canals
2) Lowers the temperature of the solar panels allowing for more energy generation
3) Needs no land which is scarce and costly in India
4) Requires less number of approvals as the canals are owned by government corporations
The government of India has sanctioned around $40 million for building 100 MW of such plants across India, providing a Viability Gap Funding of 30% for a mix of both solar rooftop plants on canals; as well as the banks of the canals. The projects will be implemented by government owned companies in the business of providing power or those government departments and companies who own these canals.
I think it’s a good idea, as the cost of building these canals is not too high at around $1.5/watt in India. It helps both the power generation and agriculture sectors in India. Its saves precious land as well, which is at a big premium in the highly population dense country. 2 large projects in Gujarat have already shown that this kind of project works well and should be replicated across the country.