Statkraft resumes operations at floating solar park in Albania

Statkraft has restarted operations at the first unit of its floating solar plant located at the Banja reservoir in southeastern Albania, Norwegian floating solar technology developer Ocean Sun, which built the unit, said.

The solar plant unit has relaunched operations of April 1 after an incident last summer, Ocean Sun said in a press release on Thursday.

In June, Ocean Sun said it was working on retrieving the floating ring with membrane and two connected barges, which were damaged and partly submerged. The cause of the incident was not disclosed.

The accident happened about a week after Statkraft began commercial operations at the unit.

The first unit covers nearly 4,000 sq m and has an installed capacity of 500 kWp, with almost 1,600 solar panels.

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, according to an earlier filing by the company.

The solar power plant project has a total investment cost of about 2 million euro ($2.2 million).

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.

($ = 0.9202 euro)

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