Boom time for floating solar

An array of solar panels floating on top of a water storage pond in Sayreville, New Jersey. Floating solar panel farms are beginning to boom in the United States after rapid growth in Asia. They’re attractive not just for their clean power and lack of a land footprint, but because they also conserve water by preventing evaporation. — AP

WHEN Joe Seaman-Graves, the city planner for the working class town of Cohoes, New York, Googled the term “floating solar”, he didn’t even know it was a thing.

What he did know is that his tiny town needed an affordable way to get electricity and had no extra land. But looking at a map, one feature stood out: “We have this 5.7ha water reservoir.”