How will India achieve its steep renewable-energy goals? Solar plant that floats is one way.

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A floating solar plant at the Yamakura Dam, in Ichihara, Japan.

Synopsis
In 2007, Japan built the world’s first floating solar plant. Tata Power recently commissioned India’s largest floating solar project in Kerala’s backwaters. Costlier than land-based solar plants, floating solar plants solve many other problems. Research suggests solar plants on water bodies save water from evaporating, generate more power among other things.

It was just a normal day for Charles Fritts, an American inventor, on the rooftop of the building where he worked. Fritts’ inventions were not extraordinary where he made clockwork mechanisms and mechanical devices. But one day, using selenium and two thin metal sheets, Fritts created the first selenium-based solar cell that made the world sit up and notice. The year was 1883. But there was one problem. Fritts, who hoped that his solar cells