California Tests Solar Panels Over Irrigation Canals to Save Water and Generate Power
Project Nexus pilots three solar canal designs to reduce evaporation while meeting the state's clean energy and water security needs.
What to know
- California's irrigation canals lose significant water to evaporation; UC Davis estimates the state could lose up to 25% of its total water supply by 2050 due to climate change.
- Project Nexus tests three solar panel designs over Turlock canals to both shade water and generate clean energy for the state's 2045 goal of 100% clean electricity.
- UC Merced researchers estimate solar panels over 100 miles of narrow canals could save enough water for 2,700 households annually; wide canals could save 11,000 households' worth and generate 330–1,400 megawatts per hundred miles.
Jordan Harris Co-founder of Solar AquagridRobin Raj Co-founder of Solar AquagridRoger Bales UC Merced professorTurlock Irrigation District Project partnerCalifornia Department of Water Resources State agency partner
How it unfolded 1 development · click the chart to see its coverage postscomments
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Story reaches Hacker News
The KQED article is shared on Hacker News, gaining initial discussion among the tech and engineering community.
“And so I started thinking, could we do something similar in California?”
— Jordan Harris, Solar Aquagrid co-founder · source -
California solar panels tower over canals in Turlock, proving a win-win that saves water, produces clean energy, and improves local water quality. https://www. kqed.org/science/2002033/heres -what-california-is-learning-from-solar-panels-built-over-irrigation-canals # Environment # Energy # Water # Southwest # California # Drought # Aquafers #…
2 more of the top 3 · 47 posts in this stretch
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When you read lines like "California’s extensive network of canals and aqueducts is the lifeblood of the state, providing clean water to populous cities and expansive farms that wouldn’t otherwise have it." you have to ask how we ended up with these canal systems, what the tradeoffs are in a landscape setup this way rather than one where water…
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There were talks about a road that can charge your EV while driving. Basically wireless charging highways Wireless charging would suck - the field intensity drops off enormously with distance, even just a little bit like the ground clearance from the bottom of a vehicle to the road surface would waste a lot of power. The kind of charging that…
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background
KQED reports on California's solar canal pilot project — KQED publishes article on Project Nexus, a pilot initiative testing solar panels over Turlock Irrigation District canals. The project aims to reduce water evaporation while generating clean energy.
Also covered reported alongside — the timeline has no entry for these yet
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first by HN Best, 2d ago · also HN Frontpage
What people are saying 21 voices from 3 sites · best of 47 · verbatim
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Raj affectionately called the wide-span canopy his “singular field of dream.” Roger Bales, a professor at UC Merced who co-authored a 2021 study that helped convince the state to invest in this pilot, said his initial calculations indicate that putting panels over 100 miles of Turlock’s narrow canals could save enough water for 2,700 households…
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I'm really confused by this whole thread. How is this project fundamentally different from the solar shades used in parking lots, or even rooftop solar? You have existing land that's already productive, and you're making it more productive by installing solar panels. Building a new solar plant on new land is a completely orthogonal project.
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Uncovered canals are ridiculously dumb, if you care about water conservation.There are resovoirs in California with millions of black rubber shade balls floating on the surface to reduce evaporation. There's no reason why we shouldn't be doing this everywhere.
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# solar # WaterIsLife "Here’s What California Is Learning From Solar Panels Built Over Irrigation Canals California solar panels tower over canals in Turlock, proving to save water, produce clean energy and improve local water quality. California’s extensive network of canals and aqueducts is the lifeblood of the state, providing clean water to…
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I wouldn't touch fields or canals. The US has incredible amounts of parking lots. They are also mostly built in very developed parts of the land with a lot of users for electric power in close proximity. And a parking lot is already "sealed ground". Might be less problematic to get a permit there?Additional plus: cars don't heat up in the sun. And…
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I am puzzled by this article on “What California Is Learning From Solar Panels Built Over Irrigation Canals” The idea is: irrigation canals suffer from evaporation. So why not cover them with solar panels, which will generate power while reducing evaporation? If covering the canals to reduce evaporation was worth doing, why hasn't it been done…
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Puerto Rico has this problem too and that's US territory. Not as bad for sure. But it has expensive fossil fuel power generation and unreliable infrastructure. It's screaming out for renewable energy.The key to all this though is that fossil fuels exist to induce demand for weapons. Once you realize that it all makes (depressing) sense.
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In Venezuela, currently in an unprecedented electricity crisis with daily rationing up to six hours, 10 billion dollars supposed to replace turbines in the main dam that supplies power to the country were stolen with no accountability. With that money you could have installed solar roofs in a million homes serving five million people…
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The idea of covering irrigation canals has been around probably for thousands of years. Only recently I have seen this being done in Xinjiang in towns right next to the desert. The canals which have river water often flow under streets and through little caves and such, enabling them to grow grapes and such. The grapes are then also providing…
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> The shade supports don't have to hold up solar panels: Shade supports cost less.If you look at the photos, the solar panels are mounted directly on the supports. If you wanted a simple shade for the canal, you would have to mount some kind of roof on the supports instead of the solar panels. Granted, the solar panels probably weigh a bit more…
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The supports in the picture are massive and don't look cheap.They look like ordinary “bents” for prefabricated metal buildings which are about the cheapest kind of building per square foot. Made out of steel, they are typically sold at a cost per ton like other steel shapes.The cost of the scheme is in maintenance. No ground level access. No easy…
- Sep 22
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I think someone made the mistake of calculating that the canals cover an absurd area, usually mapped by easement area instead of actual geometry. They’re absolutely right that permitting would be easier, without accounting for the fact that the majority of the canals run through the Sierras, and that the California Water Project is the biggest…
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21GW of Solar for California Land That Can No Longer Be Used for Agriculture - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46488648 - January 2026https://valleycleaninfrastructureplan.com/(covering canals reduces evaporation in addition to effectively being free space for solar PV; if the labor and material costs are reasonable, the land is free forever…
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> construct a cheap shade over the entire canalThat aint' gonna fly - you're going to have engineering requirements for a 100' span wither it's a shade structure or a solar panel. And don't even think about fabric shade sail types of things, nobody is going to want to replace those every 3 years.>it takes 1/6 the time to build on developed land…
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> Even though the canal is fenced in, “we have instances where we have cars go into the canal — we’ll have people go into the canal, and animals go into the canal,” Allen said, describing some of the challenges they faced as an urban water district.>“What Turlock is doing with their projects is very impressive, but we have a different-looking…
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They should give credit where credit is due. Solar panels on top of irrigation canals was pioneered in the Indian state of Gujarat back in 2012[1][1]
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Anecdotally speaking, I have heard of a massive California solar farm in an undeveloped area that has serious vandalism problems. Junkies will find ways through the fencing at night, strip copper and other materials from panels, and cause thousands in damages and lost energy just to extract enough scrap for a fix.Nothing short of a face-to-face…
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oof, that is a crap ton of steel. I doubt those panels will ever harvest enough energy to offset the energy use to produce both the cells and supports.I imagine with cells in that configuration, lifting wind loads are significant which is why it's overbuilt like that.Perhaps some laminate timber for the cross supports?Lastly, the US has got to…
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It seems like it would be more effective to simply put all the solar panels in a field, and construct a cheap shade over the entire canal no? The supports in the picture are massive and don't look cheap. Also I would imagine the solar array uses more copper than a similar capacity array just built in a field. You can't daisy chain multiple miles…
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There are signs and poles and overpasses all over highways. I’m not saying a support won’t get hit. I’m saying not enough will get hit for it to matter.
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California solar panels tower over canals in Turlock, proving to save water, produce clean energy and improve local water quality: https://www. kqed.org/science/2002033/heres -what-california-is-learning-from-solar-panels-built-over-irrigation-canals by KQED's Ella Jackson