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A large environmental coalition signed a letter to support the construction of solar panels on 8,000 miles of open-air federal canals.
The US Department of the Interior and Bureau of Reclamation received a letter signed by more than 125 groups urging federal agencies to develop an initiative to develop federally owned and operated solar installations on canals and aqueducts.
The petition, signed by many of the leading climate and environmental groups, highlighted the opportunity to cover nearly 13,000 km of outdoor canals with solar capacity. It is estimated that 25 GW of renewable energy could be installed in these places, enough to supply almost 20 million homes, according to the group.
“The Bureau of Reclamation has full authority to execute this plan. Congress has given the Department of the Interior clear authority to grant leases to authorize Bureau of Reclamation uses of land, including utilities, transmission lines, and other appropriate uses,” the letter states.
The installation of solar energy in the canals carries important collateral benefits. First, it prevents the development of public land. The 2020 Power Act created a mandate to deploy 25 GW of onshore renewable energy on public land without destroying an additional acre of habitat. Only by covering the channels of the Bureau of Reclamation could this objective be achieved.
Additionally, a sun canopy over the canals reduces water evaporation through shading and cooling. The groups estimate that tens of billions of liters of freshwater evaporation could be reduced as a result. This may prove critical, as despite a wet winter, much of the western United States remains in a long-term drought that will likely worsen as climate change intensifies.
“The Bureau of Reclamation and states that depend on the Colorado River are already considering unprecedented water cuts to protect the water supply of 40 million people who depend on the river,” the letter says. “In a study examining similar measures in waterways within California, scientists estimated that shading provided by solar panels could reduce evaporative water loss by 63 billion gallons (nearly 240 billion liters) of water per year, an amount equivalent to the annual water consumption of approximately 2 million people per year.”
Many federally operated canals are located in Environmental Justice communities, which means that adding significant solar capacity can help drive out fossil fuel use in these communities that are most affected by the negative health outcomes of fossil fuel production and consumption.
Californias Central Valley Project, a large canal system, alone uses about a billion kWh of electricity per year to pump water. Bringing solar power closer to these systems would offer an efficient system for moving water, displacing the diesel generators used today.
"Given the Bureau of Reclamations long history of creating hydroelectric power, generating gigawatts of solar power on its canals would be a purely additive benefit, and could even help fill shortfalls in electricity generation such as when hydroelectric facilities cannot function due to low water levels," the letter notes.
Solar canal installation is gaining popularity around the world. There are projects underway in California, India, Spain and France, many of them on a large scale. |
