Fishing community opposes floating solar project on Maharashtra dam

Early each morning, fisherman Nitin Birute casts his net into the backwaters of Jayakwadi Dam, catching enough fish to feed his family and make a modest living.

But he fears his livelihood could evaporate if plans to install a huge floating solar farm on the Nathsagar reservoir go ahead.

The government is considering a project to blanket about 7,500 hectares of the 350-sq km reservoir near the town of Paithan in Maharashtra with floating photovoltaics, part of an ambitious push to create 500 gigawatts of renewable energy capacity by 2030 – enough to power hundreds of millions of homes in the world’s most populous nation.

Details on the Jayakwadi project, which is in the early stages of planning, are not publicly available, and THDC India Limited, the state power company behind it, did not respond to requests for information about the floating solar farm’s capacity, cost or when construction might begin.

Floating photovoltaics, installed on reservoirs, lakes and offshore waters, is an emerging technology that is particularly appealing to countries with limited land resources.

But their impact on nature is a topic of debate, and environmentalists have warned that they may adversely affect people who depend on fishing and agriculture.

“We depend on this water for our food and our livelihood,” said Birute, who belongs...

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