r/climatechange • u/randolphquell • 3d ago

The US’s first solar panels over canals pilot is now online

https://electrek.co/2025/04/03/us-first-solar-panels-canals-pilot-online/
124 Upvotes

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9

u/HankuspankusUK69 3d ago

Interesting to see if the water makes the panels more efficient by cooling them down .

1

u/Molire 3d ago

One goal of the project is for the panels to provide shade for the water to make the water temperature lower to reduce the rate of evaporation, potentially saving up to millions of acre feet of water annually in the Turlock Irrigation District (map) alone.

Food for thought:

In California, in the San Joaquin Drainage Climate Division (map), the long-term 30-year 1995-2025 precipitation trend -20.37in per century (chart) is 13.65in per century less than the long-term 30-year precipitation trend -6.72in per century (chart) in the preceding long-term 30-year period 1965-1995, and 21.8in per century less than the 100-year 20th-century 1901-2000 precipitation trend +1.43in per century (chart).

The precipitation trend appears above the chart. LOESS and Trend can be toggled for their respective plot lines to stand out more clearly in the chart.

In a worse case global warming scenario, if the California economy were to collapse because of a long-term mega-drought (map), the United States economy expectedly would collapse.

On July 1, 2024, an estimated one out of approximately every 8.6 U.S. residents lived in the state of California (U.S. Census data), and on July 1, 2024 (U.S. Census Bureau IDB date), an estimated one out of approximately every 204.3 persons on the planet (U.S. Census IDB) were residents in the state of California.

In 2024, the state of California gross domestic product (GDP) was $4,103,123.6 millions in current US dollars, equal to approximately 14.06% of the United States total national GDP of $29,184,890.0 millions in 2024 (BEA table).

In 2024, if the state of California were a country, it would have been the 4th-largest national economy in the world by GDP, after #3 Germany (IMF, US $4,710,032 millions).

4

u/shanem 3d ago

India did this 10+ years ago

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canal_Solar_Power_Project

1

u/Outaouais_Guy 1d ago

As the article states:

India already has solar panels over canals, but Project Nexus is the first of its kind in the US.

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u/hughkuhn 6h ago

One of the first in the US. There are other arrays over canals in the US.

1

u/PopIntelligent9515 3d ago

There will be a lot more of this in the future.

1

u/glyptometa 2d ago

Yeh it seems to make sense. Usually access roads, concrete to anchor to. Must need to consider canal maintenance I suppose, and cabling runs will be long. I'd get the buildings down first, but yeh

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u/hughkuhn 6h ago

Spot on. Canal maintenance is top challenge, long conductor runs to interconnection is right up there also. Overall capex for elevated arrays is potentially too high when trying to generate electricity at wholesale rates. Hence - pilots.

1

u/spurge25 1d ago

I love this idea! Way better than a solar farm, where a landscape covered with glass and metal is called green energy.