What are the disadvantages of a canal-top solar power project?

I'm looking for answers from people with experience and expertise in the solar energy industry.
In my understanding, one of the most important factors in setting-up a solar-power plant is the
location. But, in this case, we do not control the location because the canal already exists,
possibly at a sub-optimal location.
So, do the gains from saving water and space offset the losses from bad location?
How useful is a canal-top solar power project overall? Why isn't this being done else-where?
What are the other ecological side-effects from not letting water evaporate?
Advantages of such a project:
1. If even 10 per cent of the 19,000 km-long Narmada canal network in Gujarat is used for
setting up canal-top solar panels, it has the potential to produce2,200 MW of solar power !!!
2. Simultaneously it will prevent 90 lakh (9 Million) litres of water from evaporation annually.
3. Land does not need to be acquired separately to construct a solar park.
4. The solar panels produced 15 per cent extra power as compared to land installations as the
water flowing under the panels kept them relatively cool.
Sources:
Deepanshu Rastogi's answer to What is the most memorable idea that made you go "WOW!
That's amazing!" when you first learned about it, and why?
Slideshow : Gujarat's canal-top solar power plant: 10 must-know facts - Gujarat's canal-top solar
power plant: 10 must-know facts | The Economic Times
http://www.narendramodi.in/gujar...
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Deepak Sheth
4 upvotes by Mayank Shukla, Himanshu Singh, Gautham Naidu, (more)
having researched this thoroughly both on the US Department of Energy website and the
California solar initiative website and also various details available in the public domain.
Moisture is not a problem with the panels. Upkeep is minimal. there is1% degradation in
efficiency/yr. The design is not a problem since you have to follow the solar solstice. the rest
of the points made above by Mr.
1

Mahima Bhargava, are also not valid.

The only valid disadvantage would be the increased construction cost which would be
more than made up by the land acquisition savings. Real-world studies do show that the
efficiency of the system is increased by the cool panels. this method was bandied about in
California over the California aqueduct but was given up because of fears of increased
maintenance cost since the labor costs in California are extremely high.
that is not the case in India. Hardware plus panel costs are in the range of 50% and labor
and profit takes up the other 50%. this is for a minimal 6 to 12 inches steel mounting rails
for the panels.

Written 19 Feb.
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Craig Lawrence, Product Design, Marketing, Solar
2 upvotes by Prince Paikattu and Anonymous.
Some intial thoughts, as I was asked to answer.

- water + electronics = bad
- it will likely be more expensive to build a mounting structure over water than on land.
More structure = more engineering = more metal = more cost
- servicing the system could be more difficult

The idea is compelling in many ways, but the devil is in the details. Seems the only clear
benefits might be

- reduce land acquisition cost
- cooling? Not sure about that one

Written 26 Nov, 2013. Asked to answer by Danielle Nielson.
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Anand Upadhyay
Ravindran Pallath makes an important point. There was a study which reported that normal
Large scale PV installations do lead to micro-climatic changes (Big question looming -
Climate consequences of solar parks - SolarMarket.IN) in the area they cover. Something
similar would ned to be studied in case of canal top PV. This is something which needs to be
looked more closely. The other environmental issue would be if the panels, structure etc.
lead to any contamination issues.
With better (structural and other) design strategies, the cost will only go south.

Written 14 Jul.
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Ravindran Pallath
What can be the effect on the environment and climate due to the decrease in evaporation
has to be assessed seriously

Written 17 May.
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Anumakonda Jagadeesh
How accurate the claim of 9 million liters of water (2.5 mil gals) per year?
Can we get precise estimates from flowing water?

Here are views of Sunny:

I'm an engineer (did research in Urbana). I also studied Meteorology. But I
wanted to get some additional insight into some claims over water
evaporating from a man-made canal essentially due to the effects of direct
sunlight. (From what I understand, water evaporation is subject to air temp
vs water temp, air humidity, air flow rate as well as the surface area of the
water and the turbulent flow rate of the water.) So, there has been
significant politically motivated drama surrounding a Canal Top Solar Field
in India (the land of hot and dry air) where, loosely covering a man-made
water canal (maybe 10 meters wide) can save about 9 million liters of water
(2.5 mil gals) per year. This is claimed to be only by covering less than 1
km of a 458 km long canal. (If you perform a web search, you will see that
the solar panel field is raised above the surface where air can generously
flow around the water.) My question is whether the claim of loosely
covering a small section of flowing water (1.7 m/s) can save up to 2.5
million gallons of water per year or whether this is huge political drama? (I
guess the bigger question is asking if sunlight directly heats up water or
only water particulate and flow bed surfaces?) Please let me know your
thoughts.
- Sunny (age 30)
Sacramento, CA


To protect the canal generally trees are grown on the banks. If series of
canal top solar are to be erected one has to cut lot of trees along the canal.
This contradicts VANAMAHOTSAV ! What is the effect of humidity (being
on the canal top) on the Solar Panels? After all this Narmada Canal top
solar project is Just Two and a Half years old. One has to study deeply the
life cycle cost of the project as solar PV is expected to have a life of about 20
years.

Another factor that must be taken care of while selecting the solar PV
generation cite is Dust. In Rajasthan there is lot of solar PV activity in the
offing. Rajasthan rxperiences Loo,dust storm in summer. What is the effect
of these fast travelling sand particles when they strike smooth solar PV
panel suface? Did any body studied this? Maintenance is a big problem of
solar PV in dust prone areas if constant cleaning is not done the already low
efficiency of solar PV will further go down making solar PV projects not
viable. Afterall the street solar lights and solar signal lights are hardly
maintained properly.


Final word about canal top solar. When thousands of square kilometers of
waste land is available in different states,is high investment solar canal top
PV justified? It is common sense the canal needs maintenance like silt
removal, how safe these Solar panels when one undertakes sch operation?
For India the best option is Roof Top Solar. Since states like
Gujarat,Andhra Pradesh,Tamilnadu have long coast it makes sense to go in
for Offshore Wind Farms which I have been advocating since decades.
Dr.A.Jagadeesh Nellore(AP),India
Renewable Energy Expert
1 November 2014

Written just now.
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Joseph Guindi, thermodynamics engineer; aeros... (more)
It isn't being done elsewhere for many reasons. I can think of two:
1. Local Shading
Many canals are lined with trees to ensure the soil's stability and prevent erosion,
especially the older ones. This means that these devices would require uprooting
millions of trees to function properly.
2. Environmental
Especially for urban canals, these have developed into urban parks, wetlands for birds,
and greenery areas for residents in otherwise heavily built-up areas. Covering such
canals with PV panels essentially destroys these wetlands, and combined with the
uprooting of trees would destroy urban park spaces. In Europe right now there is a
movement towards renovating and upgrading such canals for the quality of life of its
residents.

Written 5 Jul.
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Mahima Bhargava, Always sleepy, always dreaming...
As you have already marked the advantages, I'll leap straight to the disadvantage part:

1. Designing Issue
As PV panels have to be aligned in a uniform way, it would get difficult to achieve the same
over a canal which would be curvaceous and changes its direction over a length.

2. Structural Steel Cost
As the structures would get base support only from its two ends it needs to be much
stronger than in case it would have been installed on land, thus adding more cost.

3. Power Evacuation
Power evacuation of small capacity over a long path would be difficult and costly due to
increased Cable costs.

4. Module performance due to humidity
As the PV module would be placed above a water body, the humidity level would be higher
than land areas, which in turn would deteriorates the PV module efficiency.

5. Safety of system
System spread over such a large length can not be protected by boundary walls or fencing,
thus security concerns are very major in such cases.

Will add more points later.

Written 26 Nov, 2013. Asked to answer by Danielle Nielson.
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