Russia’s first floating PV plant comes online

The facility was built with 140 heterojunction solar panels mounted on pontoon-type floats. The project is located at the site of the 320 MW Nizhne-Bureyskaya hydropower plant, owned and operated by Rushydro in the Russian Far East’s Amur region.

Russian hydropower producer Rushydro and solar manufacturer Hevel have completed construction on a floating solar power plant at the site of the company’s 320 MW Nizhne-Bureyskaya hydropower plant in the Russian Far East’s Amur region.

The facility was built with 140 heterojunction solar panels mounted on pontoon-type floats. Monocrystalline solar modules and eight transformerless 3-phase PV grid-connected inverters with an AC output power of 125000 VA were used in the project, a spokesperson from Hevel told pv magazine. “The PV plant covers an area of 474 square meters and consists of 10 rows of PV modules, 14 panels in each, mounted at 15 degree tilt angle.”

According to the Russian module maker, the floating generator is ensured by a special connection scheme of floating modules and is designed to withstand several meters in water level differential and waves. “The 52.5 kW floating PV plant generates electricity for the hydro power plant’s demands,” the spokesperson added. “The plant has its own automatic inverter with an 115.2 kWh storage system that allows it to work in stand-alone mode.”

Hevel also claims that the project’s special design of buoyant pontoons reduces construction time and increases its mobility. The PV plant can be dismantled quickly and transported to any part of the reservoir, it further explained.

Source: pv-magazine.com