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Hydro & solar | Solar stays afloat


French company Ciel & Terre shares its experience and expertise with floating solar projects. One of its many projects was the 1MWp Sobradinho plant in Brazil which was part of a research and development programme initiated by the Brazilian government in 2016 to increase energy production at the site


THE SOBRADINHO DAM WAS built in the 1970s on the São Francisco River in Brazil. Originally used to produce electricity it also provided flood control, irrigation, navigation, and water supply. In 2016, the Brazilian government agreed to optimise the performance of the infrastructure and launched a research and development programme with this objective.


A floating solar power plant with a capacity of 1MW was established by Ciel & Terre to meet this need. The Sobradinho project foresees an electricity production of 1546MWh/year which will meet the consumption of 616 households and avoid 502 tons of CO2 equivalent per year. The installation of a solar power plant always


Below: A floating solar project installed in Japan on an irrigation pond, Hanaoka Ike 2.3MWp


presents challenges related to site conditions. The anchoring of floating power plants on dam projects is the most complex factor due to the depth of reservoirs. In the case of the Sobradinho solar island, a specific and customised solution was designed for the anchoring to accommodate the site’s depth of up to 29.3m and its water level variation of up to 13m.


Previously in 2016, Ciel & Terre also had to adapt to the constraints of the reservoir of a dam through the Alto Rabagao floating solar project in Portugal.


Benefits and advantages The combination of floating solar and dam technology


adds to their own individual strength. Indeed, the floating structure significantly increases the dam’s power generation capacity and the floating solar power plant thus benefits from the electrical structures of the hydroelectric dam. As a result, the electricity produced is from a more environmentally friendly hybrid system. From an environmental point of view, the production of cleaner energy is not the only benefit of using a water body as the limitation of evaporation is one of the major advantages of floating solar power plants. Algae growth is also reduced as the photosynthesis process is impacted by the number of solar panels deployed on the water surface, while seasonality also loses its influence on ponds with a such installations. Moreover, the use of the available water surfaces


22 | July 2023 | www.waterpowermagazine.com


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