Bangladesh pumped storage photovoltaic power station

With this in mind, a research group from the Islamic University of Technology, in Bangladesh, has conducted a simulation to evaluate the integration of a 50 MW floating solar plant with the 230 MW Karnafuli Hydroelectric Power Station located at the Kaptai Dam on the Karnaphuli River in Rangamati district, in the southeastern part of the country.

The proposed hybrid system was described in the paper Optimized seasonal performance analysis and integrated operation of 50 MW floating solar photovoltaic system with Kaptai hydroelectric power plant: a case study, published in Energy Sources. Several studies have been conducted in recent years on the combination of the two technologies.

The modules should be installed with a tilt angle of 30 degrees. All the power generated by the solar facility should be used during the day, during which only some of the five turbines of the hydropower plant would be in use.

“Conserving water will later prove to be a key differentiator when the preserved water is used to satisfy the peak load demand at night,” the research group emphasized, adding that the hydropower facility may act as a backup for the solar plant in the event of a discontinuity or instability in solar radiance.

Complementing hydroelectric power with floating solar PV can be a suitable solution for daytime peak electricity demand and to offset the respective shortfalls of the two power generation technologies.

The simulated PV system is south-oriented and built with 400 W panels with an efficiency of 21.63% from Korean manufacturer LG, and string inverters from Chinese specialist Huawei. The modules should be installed with a tilt angle of 30 degrees.