Waterside

Solar waterside power generation

An irrigation district in California's Central Valley region has installed arrays of solar panels atop a series of canals to demonstrate how such systems can generate electrical power and, through shading, reduce the loss of water from evaporation. . But this solar canopy near Turlock is not only shading the water flowing underneath it - it's also producing enough clean electricity to power several thousand homes. Josh Weimer is with the Turlock Irrigation District, which operates the canal. It's a simple idea that people have talked about for decades, but only now is it finally being tested in real life, thanks to Brandi McKuin at UC Merced, whose study. . The $20 million experiment, dubbed Project Nexus, is funded by the state of California and will assess whether solar panel canopies erected over exposed irrigation canal systems can significantly reduce water evaporation while simultaneously generating renewable power. There are actually two solar canopies operating now, and they both are a part of a pilot study called “Project Nexus. Project Nexus serves as a proof of concept to pilot and further study solar-over-canal design, deployment, and co-benefits on behalf of the State of. .