MERCED COUNTY – California’s Central Valley is not just home to the breadbasket of the world, it’s now home to the big ideas that could tackle our biggest challenges: using innovation to generate clean electricity while conserving water.

Governor Gavin Newsom invested $20 million in a solar over canals pilot project in Turlock, and on Apr 04, the Governor joined the Biden Administration to celebrate new federal funding for another solar over canals pilot project outside of Los Banos. Solar over canals projects involve installing solar panels over water canals to help reduce evaporation and generate clean electricity.

 “California is pioneering innovations to tackle our biggest challenges, and here in the Central Valley we’re addressing two big challenges at the same time – generating clean electricity and conserving water. Companies are coming to California because we’re embracing innovation and we have the talent and infrastructure to foster new technologies that will solve not only California’s, but the world’s, biggest challenges,” said Governor Gavin Newsom.

These pilot projects will demonstrate the feasibility of installing solar panels over canals, reduce water evaporation, improve water quality, provide renewable power generation, and demonstrate scalability.

UC Merced will study the Turlock project to determine how much clean energy could be generated, how much water could be conserved, and analyze how this could be scaled statewide. Initial findings show that if these projects are scaled statewide they would save California over 60 billion gallons of water every year – enough for 2 million people, and generate 13 gigawatts of clean power – more than half the projected new solar capacity needed by 2030 to meet the state’s decarbonization goals.

（photo source：Office of Governor Newsroom）