The sun is set to play a major role in meeting India's future energy needs. With a population of 1.3 billion and growing, India is expected to become the world's most populous country in the next 15 years. With a growing population comes an increasing demand for energy, and one way to meet this is to add clean, solar power to the energy mix.
India has ambitious plans in this area. The country plans to add 10 gigawatts of solar energy in the next two years and is targeting 100 gigawatts of solar-generated power by 2020. But in a country where land is a scarce resource, installing vast solar plants is not always an option.
An innovative solution has been set up on the outskirts of Vadodara, a city which is also ABB's biggest manufacturing hub in India and globally. A brainchild of the Gujarat State Electricity Corporation, a 10-megawatt (MW) solar power plant has been built over a 3.6-kilometer stretch of irrigation canal. The solar panels not only generate a significant amount of emission-free energy, but also minimize water evaporation and save valuable agricultural land that would otherwise have been required for the solar field. Additionally, the water in the canal helps to cool down the solar panel surface which improves the efficiency of the panels leading to higher power generation output.
An idea for the present with potential for the future
On the strength of its successful track record in India's solar power sector, ABB was selected by the plant's engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contractor, Megha Engineering & Infrastructure Limited (MEIL), to provide a fully integrated electrical balance of plant (EBoP) and automation solution for the photovoltaic (PV) power plant.
The solution includes a range of ABB power and automation technologies designed and optimized for PV power plants. These include central inverters, transformers, indoor and outdoor switchyards and the connection to the local distribution network in compliance with utility grid codes. ABB was responsible for design, engineering, installation and commissioning.
The plant's innovative solution has been well recognized and the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon inaugurated it last year. The idea also has significant potential given that the state of Gujarat is home to one the world's largest irrigation networks, with some 19,000 kilometers of canals distributing water to vast tracts of farmland. It is estimated that if even 10 percent of the network was used for canal-top solar power generation, it could produce 2,400 megawatts (MW) of clean energy. It would also save more than 21 billion liters of water annually and eliminate the need to use 11,000 acres of land for plant construction.
ABB has long been at the forefront of India's growing solar power push - providing integrated power and automation solutions for more than 10 utility-scale PV power plants, ranging from a generating capacity of between 1 MW and 50 MW.
