HICKMAN, Calif., Aug 25 (Reuters) – California is about to begin an experiment to cover aqueducts with solar panels, a plan that, if scaled up, could save billions of gallons of otherwise evaporated water while powering millions of homes.
The Nexus Project at the Turlock Irrigation District launches in mid-October amid the worst drought in western North America in 1,200 years and as human-induced climate change exacerbates the drought disaster.
Groundbreaking for the $20 million state-funded project is to be done in two locations. One is 500 feet (152 meters or about 0.3 miles) wide along a curved section of the canal in the town of Hickman, about 100 miles (160 km) inland from San Francisco. Another is a mile long (1.6 km long) in nearby Ceres.
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The project, based on a similar one in the western Indian state of Gujarat, is the first of its kind in the United States, said University of California Merced project scientist Brandi McQueen. The Turlock project was inspired by a McKuin research paper published in 2021.
Modern California was built thanks to 20th-century infrastructure that delivered water from the arid north to the arid south, which McKuin’s network says now has a total of 4,000 miles (6,400 km) of canals.
Covering these channels with solar panels will reduce evaporation, avoid using other land for solar farms, and reduce weed and algae growth in the water, saving on maintenance costs, McKuin said.
“It’s really exciting to test our hypothesis and the paper we’ve published. We’ll have the opportunity to see if these benefits translate into the real world,” McKuin said.
It will also help California meet its renewable energy goal of achieving 50% clean energy generation by 2025 and 60% by 2030.
If all 4,000 miles of canals were lined with solar panels, it could produce 13 gigawatts of renewable energy, about half of what California needs to meet its carbon-free energy goals.
One gigawatt, or 1 billion watts, is enough to power 750,000 homes.
McKuin’s study also estimated water savings of 63 billion gallons (238 million cubic meters), enough to supply 2 million people and irrigate 50,000 acres (20,000 hectares) of farmland.
Like other utilities in the state, Turlock Irrigation District Water & Power is required to expand its renewable energy capacity.
“If it’s something that works in the first two miles of Project Nexus that we’ve done, it has the potential to spread to several locations,” said Josh Weimer, external affairs manager for Turlock Water & Power.
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Reporting by Nathan Frandino; Written by Daniel Trotta; Edited by Donna Bryson and Mark Porter
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