State Will Try To Put Lid On Water Loss With Aqueduct Solar Project

TURLOCK (CBS SF) -- California is about to launch a new water conservation project, something it has never tried before. It's a plan to remake the state's water system, saving water and producing power as well.

"Being a Bay Area resident, traveling up and down the state, looking at these open canals, like many I wondered how much are we losing to evaporation," said Jordan Harris, founder of Solar AquaGrid.

For Harris, it started with that simple frustration, our canals bleeding water into the air. Eventually, he put together a team and a solution.

"When I put solar on my house, I put it on the roof, not in the backyard, or someplace that I want to use for something else," laughs UC Merced Engineering Professor Roger Bales.

Bales looked at the state's canals, and what might be saved if they were all covered by solar panels. His estimate: about 63 billion gallons a year.

"That's comparable to the amount needed to irrigate about 50,000 acres of farmland, or to serve the residential needs of about 2 million people," he said.

With that study, the state got behind the idea and now, they have someone willing to be the test case.

"We're just incredibly excited about this opportunity," said Josh Weimer of Turlock Irrigation District. "TID is the oldest irrigation district in the state of California."

The District will install about a mile of panels on one of it's smaller canals. A nice fit, considering this district also supplies power to its customers.

"On quite a few of our canals we actually have our electrical infrastructure right there," Weimer said. "So it makes interconnection really easy."

Beyond water savings, and clean power, there's preserved land as the state tries to build out its renewable energy supply.

"So it just makes so much more sense to put solar over already existing infrastructure," Bales said.

There's also a proof-of-concept coming on a larger scale: cable-suspended panels, stretched over the state's largest canals. It's an idea that has been around for years. Now it finally may happen.

"With climate, with years and years of drought and water uncertainty, we have to look for solutions like this," Harris said.

The first test panels in Turlock will go up later this year.