Utility-scale ground-mounted solar projects require large tracts of land. With increasing infrastructure development, land in India is becoming not only scarce but also expensive. Installing solar modules on water bodies is increasingly being explored to overcome the challenge of land availability.

Floating solar projects are slowly gaining traction in India and across the world for their unique advantages, including cutting down water evaporation, cooler operating temperatures, and minimizing land use.

However, floating solar projects come with their own set of challenges. Water bodies often witness fluctuating water levels and turbulence, which can impact the structural integrity and stability of solar modules.

Global floating solar company Ciel & Terre commissioned a 120 MW floating solar project at Omkareshwar in Madhya Pradesh, in collaboration with L&T and SJVN Green Energy, to generate power for Rewa Ultra Mega Solar.

The floating solar farm spans 210 acres on the freshwater reservoir and is designed as fourteen individual islands, each generating 8.5 MW of power.

The system incorporates 407,699 Hydrelio floats, which are configured using the aiR OPTIM 1400-3 model in a three-row setup. This configuration plays a vital role in adapting the floating infrastructure to house higher-capacity modules.

Another highlight is the implementation of a rock bolt anchoring system. Traditional methods, such as deadweights or helical anchors, are not effective on uneven or rocky reservoir beds. At Omkareshwar, the underwater terrain is irregular and includes hard rock surfaces, making conventional anchoring unsuitable due to the risk of slipping and displacement. Rock bolt anchoring involves drilling directly into the submerged rock bed to fix the mooring lines, providing a highly secure and stable foundation. This ensures the solar islands remain firmly in place even under heavy water currents and wind loads.

The project also introduced a customized floating inverter barge made from fiber-reinforced plastic (FRP). Traditionally, inverters are placed onshore or on ferrocement barges. However, in floating solar systems, especially where the solar array is positioned far from the land, this results in significant transmission losses. To overcome this, the inverters at Omkareshwar were placed on floating barges located close to the solar arrays.

The use of FRP instead of steel or cement provides several advantages. The material is corrosion-resistant, has a higher strength-to-weight ratio—about 50% more than steel—and offers better durability under harsh environmental conditions. The barge is capable of supporting over 40 tons, making it suitable for housing heavy equipment like power transformers, inverters, and switchgear.

To further bolster the system’s durability, the floats were manufactured using spin welding technology. This method ensures leak-proof joints that can withstand the stress of thermal expansion during high temperatures. By preventing water ingress and cracks, the technology extends the lifespan of the floating structure and maintains its buoyancy and performance even under extreme weather conditions.

The execution of the Omkareshwar project was not without its challenges. The team encountered torrential rains, flooding, gusty winds, intense sun exposure, and a highly irregular rocky underwater surface.

Ciel Et Terre India, MD & CEO, Deepak Ushadevi, said, “When we embarked on this journey, we knew it would be a really challenging and tough project, but we also knew that with the right technology, right team, and right mindset, we would achieve success.”

Recently, Kerala’s Agency for New and Renewable Energy Research and Technology (ANERT) issued guidelines to support the development of floating solar projects across the state. It has estimated that the water bodies in Kerala offer up to 6,500 MW of floating solar potential.

Several agencies in India have recently floated tenders for floating solar projects of different capacities. One of the biggest of them was Damodar Valley Corporation’s tender for 234 MW of floating solar projects issued in December 2024.