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All he knew was that his small town needed a convenient way to get electricity, and he didn't have any extra land. However, looking at the map, one feature stood out.
"We have this 14-acre reservoir," he said.
Seaman-Graves soon discovered that the warehouse could house enough solar panels to power the entire city hall and street lights, saving the city more than $500,000 a year. He was greeted by a flying form of pure energy.
After rapid growth in Asia, floating solar panel systems are starting to explode in the US. They are attractive not only for their clean energy and small footprint, but also because they conserve water by preventing evaporation.
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A study published in the journal Nature Sustainability in March found that more than 6,000 cities in 124 countries could use floating solar power to generate enough electricity for all their needs, a climate solution that should be taken seriously. This allows them to save enough water to fill 40 million Olympic-sized swimming pools annually.
Zhengzhong Zeng, who participated in the study and is an associate professor at the Southern University of Science and Technology in Shenzhen, China, said the United States has the potential to produce more energy than the states of Florida, Nevada and California consume. Of course, they need an energy mix to provide 24/7 power, Zeng said.
The concept of floating solar power is simple. attach panels to rafts so they float on water instead of anchoring to land that can be used for farming or construction. The panels are sealed and act as a lid, reducing evaporation to near zero, which is beneficial in areas like California that experience frequent droughts. The water also keeps the modules cool, allowing them to generate more electricity than their land-based counterparts, which lose efficiency when they get too hot.
"Our installers tell us they like it because it's different," says Chris Bartle, director of sales and marketing for Ciel & Terre, a floating solar company that has built 270 projects in 30 countries. "You can climb water instead of a roof, we joke that you need life jackets instead of a ladder."
Bartle's company has launched 28 floating solar projects in the US
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Limited space may have forced some countries in Asia, such as Japan and Malaysia, to develop floating solar, while other countries have simply benefited from falling solar prices, fundamentally changing the economics of solar adoption around the world.
A report by London-based Fairfield Market Research said the region currently accounts for 73% of solar sales and is a "world leader", but policy incentives in North America and Europe are predicted to drive significant growth.
One of the largest floating solar farms in the US is a 4.8 MW project that Ciel & Terre is building in Healdsburg, California.
"It's funny, I don't think a lot of people in Healdsburg know that," said David Hargreaves, a local realtor and YouTuber who lives nearby. People don't know that solar panels can be placed on water, so they don't care, he said.
Engineers are working on other problems. When solar panels cover most of the surface of a body of water, dissolved oxygen levels can change and water temperatures can drop, which can harm aquatic life. Researchers are investigating whether the electromagnetic fields generated by the cables could have negative effects on aquatic ecosystems. So far, however, there is no evidence of this.
Duke Energy, a major US utility with approximately 50,000 MW of capacity, aims to achieve net zero carbon emissions from its power generation by 2050. A small floating solar pilot project of just 1 MW has been launched in Bartow, Florida.
"The best part of my job is coming here," says Tommy O'Neill, an environmental specialist at Duke Energy, pointing to new panels floating atop a cooling pond at an adjacent gas-fired power plant.
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“I see eagles and alligators and all kinds of cool stuff... It's funny, those things make my job different every day. "When I went to college, I never thought I would ever learn alligator stuff," Oneal said.
In Cohoes, authorities are set to break ground on their $6.5 million project later this year. The federal government pays about half of that through federal subsidies for housing and urban development. Utility "National Grid" will pay another 750 thousand dollars. The city is also considering New York's Solar Incentives and Inflation Relief Act.
To his knowledge, Seaman-Graves said this is the first urban floating solar project in the country.
"We're an environmental justice community, and we see a great opportunity to replicate what we're doing for low- and middle-income cities," he said.
