Californian power authorities have finished their first solar panel-covered canal project, that will generate 1.6 megawatts.

Overseen and built by and for the Turlock Irrigation District Water & Power overtop a curved section near the town of Hickman, the canal helps irrigate cotton, tomatoes, almonds, and other crops in California’s central valley.

The decision to install the panels was influenced by a landmark 2021 research paper, where scientists at Univ. of California Santa Cruz crunched the numbers and figured that the panels would save 63.5 billion gallons of water from evaporation annually by shading the flowing water.

It also found that for every megawatt of solar energy generated during Turlock’s 290 days of average sunshine, the pairing of panels over canals could replace 15

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