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  • RESEARCH HIGHLIGHT

Solar panels that throw shade on canals are an environmental win–win

Placing solar arrays over canals would prevent water loss and improve panels’ energy harvest.
A canal running alongside banks of earth.

An irrigation canal in the dry and intensively farmed San Joaquin Valley of California. Solar panels over such canals are more efficient than those on dry land. Credit: Citizens of the Planet/Education Images/Universal Images Group/Getty

Covering canals with solar panels helps the panels to operate more efficiently — and the shade helps to keep the canals’ water from being lost to evaporation.

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Nature 592, 10 (2021)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-00768-8

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