Enlarge / A lot of California’s water supply system is uncovered to the air. (credit score: NSF)
A significant factor driving the expansion of solar energy within the US has been the economics of huge, utility-scale photo voltaic initiatives. The dimensions of vegetation ensures that their builders can purchase parts in bulk, use bigger, extra strong {hardware}, and set up every part effectively. That is in main distinction to most distributed installations, like rooftop photo voltaic.
However these installations do include downsides. They usually happen on undeveloped land, which might offset a few of their constructive contributions to local weather change, particularly if the land that must be cleared was sequestering carbon. Ideally, it could be higher to discover a approach to combine the very best options of each—use beforehand developed websites, however on a scale that places them on par with devoted installations.
One of many options that has been floated (pun meant) is to place the panels on reservoirs. Reservoirs are massive and already developed, and there is a facet advantage of floating the panels onto the water: it cuts down on evaporation, doubtlessly enhancing the worth of the reservoir. Now, researchers have examined an alternate: masking all of California’s open-air aqueducts, which provide one of the productive agricultural areas on the planet, with photovoltaics.
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