Egat signed a contract with B.Grimm Power Plc, which will serve as an engineering, procurement, and construction firm to develop photovoltaic panels worth 842 million baht on Sirindhorn Dam in Ubon Ratchathani, where an Egat hydropower plant is operating.

The floating solar farm is designed to be a hybrid system, working in tandem with 36MW of hydropower generation to increase optimisation capacity.

Under the 2018 National Power Development Plan, Egat is committed to building more floating solar farms on all nine of its dams nationwide over the next 20 years, with a combined capacity of 2,725MW. It is also planning to adopt modern energy management and energy storage systems, crucial to store electricity produced by solar panels.

Egat is building 415-meter natural walkways at all its reservoirs to be further developed into new tourist attractions.

Local media said Chatchai Mawong, director of hydropower and renewable energy power plant development at Egat, said construction is now 82% complete. Workers began installing the first lot of floating solar panels in December 2020, accelerating the installation.

Benefits:

Solar farms help reduce the waste of land.

They reduce evaporation since they are partially covering the water surface.

The project helps to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 2,143 tons per year.

They are easy to install and decommission.

A solar panel installation takes up to less than 1% of the total area of each dam’s reservoir.