What’s cooler than a canal winding its way through California? How about this: a canal winding its way through California that’s also covered in solar panels. That’s a concise description of a recently-completed initiative known as Project Nexus, which was funded by the state and constructed under the aegis of the Turlock Irrigation District.
Why put solar panels over a canal at all? As Project Nexus’s website explains, one of the goals is simply to see what effect this has on the water flowing below this technology. The project was also created with reducing water evaporation in mind; the placement of the solar panels also means that more solar power is being generated in an ecologically-friendly manner.
As Maria Gallucci reports at Canary Media, this is one of only two such projects in the U.S., both of which have been completed in the last two years. Gallucci’s analysis points to another reason why initiatives like Project Nexus are appealing to environmental advocates: since they’re built in conjunction with canals, they aren’t taking up an additional space, making land use debates a little less fraught.
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One company has an ambitious plan underwayFor now, Gallucci reports, the solar panels in these kinds of projects are largely used to power the infrastructure keeping the canal functioning. Canary Media also points to a precursor to Project Nexus built by the Gila River Indian Community as evidence of how projects like this could evolve. In a statement provided to the Arizona Mirror last year, Arizona Representative Greg Stanton said that “in this drought, every acre-foot counts” — and at a time when drought conditions threaten the southwestern United States, it isn’t hard to see the appeal of this technology.
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