Statkraft begins commercial operations at floating solar plant in Albania

Norway's renewable energy company Statkraft has begun commercial operations at the first unit of its floating solar plant located at the Banja reservoir in southeastern Albania, it said.

The 1,536-solar-panel unit with an installed capacity of 0.5 MWp covers nearly 4,000 sq m and generates electricity for Albania's national electricity grid, Statkraft said in a statement last week.

The company has also installed 160 equal panels on land for comparison and documentation of the cooling effect on the floating panels, it added.

The floating unit was developed by Norwegian floating solar technology developer Ocean Sun.

In the second half of 2021, Statkraft intends to install additional three floating units with a combined capacity of 1.5 MWp at the Banja reservoir where it already is operating its 72 MW Banja hydropower plant.

The solar power plant project has a total investment cost of about 2 million euro ($2.4 million), according to an earlier statement by Statkraft.

Statkraft, a leading company in hydro power internationally and Europe’s largest generator of renewable energy, is present in Albania through its wholly-owned subsidiaries Devoll Hydropower and Statkraft Renewables Albania.

($ = 0.8224 euro)

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