Water Resources Research Act Program

Details for Project ID AR_2025_Popp

Floating Solar Panel Systems in Irrigation Reservoirs and on their Embankments: An alternative to Solar on Agricultural Land?

Institute: Arkansas
Year Established: 2025 Start Date: 2026-01-01 End Date: 2026-12-31
Total Federal Funds: $24,951 Total Non-Federal Funds: $24,951

Principal Investigators: Michael Popp

Project Summary: With groundwater resources growing scarcer, manmade reservoirs for water storage occupy at least 28,000 acres in Arkansas. Evaporative forces on water bodies are estimated to lead to approximately 28 acre-inches of water loss during the growing season. Using solar panels for shading on reservoirs is estimated to save ~1 acre foot of that evaporation water. With solar arrays a low-cost renewable energy source, land-based systems are increasingly diverting valuable agricultural land from food, feed and fiber production. Covering land-side levees of reservoirs and reservoirs with solar panels mitigates this land use diversion. Floating solar arrays also reduce algal growth with shading and may reduce water-side levee bank erosion. Both should lower reservoir maintenance cost and add revenue potential to land currently used for water storage. Finally, system interactions with wildlife have not been quantified to date. A system demonstration is needed to assess economic and environmental feasibility.