Navi Mumbai to house largest solar panel installation on dam.

The Morbe dam on Dhavari River in Navi Mumbai is going to house something unique: a solar panel installation big enough to generate 20 megawatt of power.

A three-year-old company that is carrying out the Rs. 162 crore project claims the installation to be the largest in the world on a dam barrier, and the first in India. India already has several solar power installations on top of canals, the biggest being an underconstruction 10 MW project on a Narmada canal in Gujarat, but none on a sloping wall. To make matters complicated, the Morbe gravity dam has an earthen slope, said Rahul Gupta, an IIT-Roorkee alumnus and founder of Rays Power Experts, which got the contract from the Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation.

'The other side of the wall will have a huge amount of water, so the construction has to be done in a way that it doesn't puncture the wall,' said the 27-year-old. 'It also needs to be made sure that future maintenance is easy and the solar panels are not spoilt by salty water.' The project is scheduled to be completed by the end of March next year.


ET