Could floating solar panels on a reservoir help the Colorado River?

Summary

When Young saw the Colorado study quantifying savings from floating solar, he felt hopeful. “407,000 acre feet from one state,” he said. “I was hoping that would catch people’s attention.” Saving that much water would require using over 100,000 acres of surface water, said Cole Bedford, the Colorado Water Conservation Board’s chief operating officer, in an email. “On some of these reservoirs a [floating solar] system would diminish the recreational value such that it would not be appropriate,” he said. “On others, recreation, power generation, and water savings could be balanced.” Colorado is not planning to develop another project in the wake of this study, and Bedford said that the technology is not a silver bullet solution for Colorado River negotiations. “While floating solar is one tool in the toolkit for water conservation, the only true solution to the challenges facing the Colorado River Basin is a shift to supply-driven, sustainable uses and operations,” he said. Some of the West’s largest and driest cities, like Phoenix and Denver, ferry Colorado River water to residents hundreds of miles away from the basin using a web of infrastructure that must reliably operate in unforgiving terrain. Like their counterparts at the state level, water managers in these cities have heard floatovoltaics floated before, but they say the technology is currently too immature and costly to be deployed in the US. Lake Pleasant, which holds some of the Central Arizona Project’s Colorado River Water, is also a popular recreation space, complicating its floating solar potential. Credit: Jake Bolster/Inside Climate News Lake Pleasant, which holds some of the Central Arizona Project’s Colorado River Water, is also a popular recreation space, complicating its floating solar potential. Credit: Jake Bolster/Inside Climate News In Arizona, the Central Arizona Project (CAP) delivers much of the Colorado River water used by Phoenix, Tucson, tribes, and other southern Arizona communities w...