There are two major problems in the Arizona desert.
One is water loss to evaporation, which happens at an incredible rate. The other is loss of land to clean energy projects, and space is running out.
Installing solar farms on pristine desert land is complex and fraught with potential problems.
But what if both issues could be resolved at the same time?
A fresh engineering project aims to do exactly that. What’s being built over the water?
How the desert sun is stealing both our water and our space
Arizona’s double-bind involves the relentless heat that sucks the water out of the open-air canals. These essential waterways support life in the Southwest.
But the intense sun means millions of gallons of water are lost to evaporation daily. And we can’t afford it.
The second part of the Arizona conundrum is the need for clean energy and the increased demand for land.
The desert offers more than enough sunshine for solar power generation.
But energy installations have traditionally left large footprints. Clearing the land affects fragile ecosystems and gets local communities worked up.
The complex situation has us trapped. We need the water and the energy, and these are two different problems.
Or are they? Engineers are thinking outside the box. It appears that there may be a solution that solves both problems at the same time.
How can water loss and lack of space be addressed with the same system?
How an Arizona lab unlocked the ideal symbiosis
The Bisbee Science Lab operates in the small southern Arizona town of the same name. Researchers at the facility set up a real-world experiment backed by the Department of Energy.
The team, which also involved Tectonicus, the University of Arizona, and other scientists, constructed a small-scale testing prototype of solar panels installed above flowing water.
The point was to see if a new kind of symbiotic relationship could be created between water and clean energy.
The trial results are beyond insightful and verging on staggering.
By shading targeted parts of the flowing water, evaporation can be cut by up to 50%. But there’s another water benefit. Blocking the sunlight limits the great blooms of algae that constantly clog irrigation infrastructure.
The benefits go both ways. The running water also creates a cool microclimate underneath the solar panels, which increases output by up to 5% by cooling them down.
Can we take this lab experiment and scale it up to cover miles of public canals?
Scaling up the science in the Arizona desert
How do we take this smart science to the next level? We build directly over the water.
This is space that no one thought of using before, and it’s a game-changer when land is becoming scarce,
Engineers came up with super strong, tensioned structures to form a canopy that arches over waterways. The technology has been patented, and it’s called Solar River.
There’s still space around and beneath the structures for the canals to be serviced as usual under the heavy hardware.
The first project of this kind in the Western Hemisphere is now the reality in Arizona
Sections of the Level-Top and Casa Blanca canals in the Gila River Indian Community reservation south of Phoenix are now covered. Clean energy is flowing to the Pima and Maricopa tribes, thanks to Tectonicus‘s successful design.
The half-mile Casa Blanca pilot project alone generates 1.3 megawatts of electricity. It also saves around eight acre-feet of water from evaporation every year.
By using empty utility space, we bypass the need to clear any of the desert land. The water cools the panels, and the panels protect the water.
The trade-off sees the American West’s most precious resource saved by the same sunlight threatening to dry it up. Is water-plus-solar the blueprint for the clean energy of the future?