Posts Tagged: solar panels

Where water and electricity meet: Solar panels over canals

An array of solar panels capture sunlight in the Mojave Desert of southern California. (Photo: Andrei Orlov, via Shutterstock)

by NATALIE GESS posted 10.07.2022

With record heat waves and stubborn droughts, the state needs electricity. A partial solution? California’s first project to cover a major canal with solar panels. The Turlock Irrigation District (TID), the state Department of Water Resources, the water and energy project developer Solar AquaGrid, Marin County and UC Merced have partnered up on the project. 

Solar power hit in the solar plexus

Workers installing a roof-top solar panel array. (Photo: lalanta71, via Shutterstock)

by JIM BOYD and WINSTON HICKOX posted 04.02.2020

OPINION: On Jan. 1, California became the first state in the nation to require solar panels on all new homes up to three stories high. The unique mandate was approved last year by a state agency, the California Energy Commission. Meanwhile, just down the street in Sacramento, another state agency, the Department of Toxic Substances Control, is intent on designating the same solar panels that will be used to comply with the solar-power requirement as “hazardous waste.”