In 2015, the dry land of California was creaking under a fourth year of drought. Then-Governor Jerry Brown ordered an unprecedented 25% reduction in household water use. LFarmers, who use most of the water, also volunteered to avoid deeper mandatory cuts.
Brown also set a goal for the State gets half of its energy from renewable sourceswith climate change approaching.
However, when Jordan Harris and Robin Raj knocked on doors with an idea that addresses both water loss and climate pollution (install solar panels on irrigation canals), failed to get anyone to commit.
Fast forward eight years. With devastating heat, an unprecedented wildfire, a looming crisis on the Colorado River, a growing commitment to fight climate change, and some movement building, your company Solar AquaGrid and its partners are gearing up to start the first solar-powered covered canal project in the United States.
“All of these are coming together right now,” Harris said. “Is there a more pressing problem we can devote our time to?”
The idea is simple: install solar panels on canals in sunny and water-scarce regions where they reduce evaporation and generate electricity.
A study from the University of California, Merced, gives impetus to the idea, estimating that 63 billion gallons of water could be saved by covering California’s 4,000 miles of canals. The researchers believe that much of the installed solar power would also generate a significant amount of electricity.
But that’s an estimate: neither this nor any other potential benefits have been scientifically proven. That is about to change with Project Nexus in California’s Central Valley.
BUILDING MOMENTUM
Canal solar has long been discussed as a two-for-one solution in California, where affordable land for energy development is as scarce as water. But the big idea was still hypothetical.
Harris, a former record label executive, co-founded “Rock the Vote,” the voter registration drive in the early 1990s, and Raj organized sustainability and social responsibility campaigns for companies. Did you know people needed a push, ideally one from a trusted source.
They thought research from an accredited institution might do the trick, and they obtained funding for UC Merced to study the impact of solar-covered canals in California.
The results of the study have taken off.
They contacted Gov. Gavin Newsom, who called Wade Crowfoot, his natural resources secretary.
“Let’s put this in the ground and see what’s possible,” Crowfoot recalled the governor saying.
Around the same time, the Turlock Irrigation District, an entity that also provides power, reached out to UC Merced. I was looking to build a solar project to meet the goal state of 100% renewable energy by 2045. But land was very expensive, so building on existing infrastructure was attractive. Then there was the possibility that shading the panels could reduce weed growth in the canals, a problem that costs this utility $1 million a year.
“Until this document came out from UC Merced, we never really saw what those co-benefits would be,” said Josh Weimer, the district’s external affairs manager. “If someone was going to pilot this concept, we wanted to make sure it was us.”
The state committed $20 million in public funds, turning the pilot into a tripartite collaboration between the private, public and academic sectors. About 1.6 miles (2.6 kilometers) of channels between 20 and 110 feet wide will be covered with solar panels between five and 15 feet off the ground.
The UC Merced team will study impacts ranging from evaporation to water quality, said Brandi McKuin, the study’s principal investigator.
“We need to get to the heart of those questions before making recommendations on how to do this more broadly,” he said.
LESSONS LEARNED ABROAD
California is not the first with this technology. India pioneered one of the largest irrigation projects in the world. The Sardar Sarovar Dam and Canal project brings water to hundreds of thousands of villages in the dry and arid regions of the western Indian state of Gujarat.
The then Chief Minister of the state of Gujarat, Narendra Modi, now the country’s Prime Minister, inaugurated it in 2012 with much fanfare. San Edison, the engineering firm, pledged 19,000 km (11,800 miles) of solar channels. But only a handful of smaller projects have gone up since then. The company declared bankruptcy.
“Capital costs are really high and maintenance is a problem,” said Jaydip Parmar, an engineer in Gujarat who oversees several small solar channel projects.
With vast barren lands, ground-based solar makes more economic sense theresaid.
The crude design is another reason why the technology has not been widely adopted in India. The panels from the Gujarat pilot project sit directly on the canalwhich limits the access of maintenance and emergency teams.
Back in California, Harris took note of the Indian experience and began looking for a better solution. The project there will use better materials and sit higher.
NEXT STEPS
Project Nexus may not be alone for long. The Gila River Indian community received Bipartisan Infrastructure Act funding to install solar power on their canals in an effort to save water to ease stress on the Colorado River. And one of the largest water and power utilities in Arizonathe Salt River Project, is studying the technology with Arizona State University.
Still, rapid change isn’t exactly accepted in the world of water infrastructure, said Rep. Jared Huffman, D-Calif.
“It’s an ossified bastion of old heavy engineering,” he said.
Huffman has been talking about the technology for nearly a decade, and said he finds that the people are still much more interested in building taller dams than what he says is a much more sensible idea.
Led a provision of $25 million through the Inflation Reduction Act last year to fund a pilot project for the Recovery Office. The project sites for that are currently being evaluated.
And a group of more than 100 climate advocacy groups, including the Center for Biological Diversity and Greenpeace, sent a letter to Home Secretary Deb Haaland and Office Commissioner Camille Touton urging them to “accelerate the widespread deployment of solar photovoltaic systems” over the Office’s canals and aqueducts. Covering the 8,000 miles of canals and aqueducts owned by the Office could “generate more than 25 gigawatts of renewable energyenough to supply nearly 20 million homes, and reduce water evaporation by tens of billions of gallons.”
Covering all canals would be ideal, Huffman said, but starting with the California Aqueduct and the Delta Mendota Canal, “it’s a really compelling case,” he said. “And it’s about time we started doing this.”