Got a canal or khlong? Why not put your solar panels over it and save land?

[Crossy]

Solar energy is eco-friendly, but it generally requires a large amount of land. An option in India is to transform the country’s waterways into gleaming solar-panel pathways. 

 

Read more https://knovhov.com/solar-panels-over-canals-in-india/

 

[tonray]

Maybe siphon off a bit of juice to electrocute the mosquito larvae while you have the chance

[sezze]

Love the idea , but difficult to do . Some Thai people do have quite long fingers sort of speak ... many will be stolen fast .

[KhaoYai]

On a serious note - its time the Thai government introduced some sort of incentive to persuade people to install solar and ban the growing number of solar farms that seem to be springing up everywhere.

 

We are constantly being told that the world will soon be facing a food shortage as the population explodes and soil erosion continues to turn large areas in to barren wastelands. It makes no sense to cover farmland with solar panels when there are millions of empty rooftops.

[Crossy]

2 minutes ago, KhaoYai said:

On a serious note - its time the Thai government introduced some sort of incentive to persuade people to install solar and bad the growing number of solar farms that seem to be springing up everywhere.

 

We are constantly being told that the world will soon be facing a food shortage as the population explodes and soil erosion continues to turn large areas in to barren wastelands. It makes no sense to cover farmland with solar panels when there are millions of empty rooftops.

 

Indeed, you might find the article linked in this thread interesting.

 

 

[sezze]

2 minutes ago, KhaoYai said:

On a serious note - its time the Thai government introduced some sort of incentive to persuade people to install solar and bad the growing number of solar farms that seem to be springing up everywhere.

 

We are constantly being told that the world will soon be facing a food shortage as the population explodes and soil erosion continues to turn large areas in to barren wastelands. It makes no sense to cover farmland with solar panels when there are millions of empty rooftops.

This is what i never did understand . Having a solar farm , doesn't mean you can't do anything more with it  . Yes i know , that's always what they do , but it doesn't have to be . Plenty of plants/vegetables are grown in shadow area . Things like mushrooms are grown in near dark conditions . This is not only the case in Thailand , it's done WW like that .

The incentive on solar , i am afraid that they won't do so ( or won't work ), since many( most ) Thais do not care at all about housing , and they totally never ever think about payback times , they live from day to day , week to week , month to month but never about next year .

[impulse]

Re: Photo in the OP....  Anyone else forecasting a problem if the canal silts over and they have to muck it out?

 

[Muhendis]

Having water and/or crops under the panels will keep them cooler thus helping with efficiency.

As far as the government helping out with solar installation/feed in tariff is concerned, the government has a major financial interest in electricity and they are unlikely to do anything to risk loosing any of it.

[motdaeng]

similar idea made in switzerland ...

 

 

[Crossy]

7 minutes ago, motdaeng said:

similar idea made in switzerland ...

And also provides protection for the panels under severe weather conditions, maybe not so relevant here but for places with typhoons and the like it could be viable.

[Moonlover]

Thailand's right up there folks.

 

Thailand's floating solar farm

[KhaoYai]

9 hours ago, Crossy said:

Indeed, you might find the article linked in this thread interesting.

Yes, very interesting but I'm not convinced its the best way.  As I said previously, there are milllions of empty rooftops where as far as I can see, there is no downside to fitting solar panels.  It may be possible to grow crops under solar panels but despite the claims, I'm not persuaded that its even worth exploring - good agricultural land will always grow more as it is.  In fact, to be really sustainable we actually need more land to grow our food than we currently have.  The issue of nitrates and the damge they do to the environment and bio-diversity is a real issue.

 

(There's a brilliant documentary out there that covers all the environmental issues including the use of nitrates, soil erosion bio-diversity etc. as well as the usual greenhouse gas stuff.  Age related Brain Fog is causing temporary memory loss at the moment - when it clears I'll post the name).

 

There are plenty of other areas where solar panels could be installed before we start using up farmland but the argument takes us way off topic into areas like the price of food.  We live in a strange world where farmers have to be subsidised to grow one of life's essentials yet we seem happy to fork out way more for non-essential items - the price or milk-vs-beer comes to mind. The world over, farmers often work all year for very little and sometimes make losses yet the supermarkets that sell the food they produce make billions - something wrong there!

 

Its hardly surprising that farmers are attracted by the possibility of making more from producing electricity but surely that's not the best way to deal with their problems?

[tifino]

the dark muddy water licking catfish will love them for the idea 

 

[Moonlover]

9 hours ago, impulse said:

Re: Photo in the OP....  Anyone else forecasting a problem if the canal silts over and they have to muck it out?

 

I doubt it. As long as the water keeps moving an irrigation ditch should be self cleaning. And they wouldn't be much use as an irrigation canal if the water didn't keep moving!

[bangon04]

11 hours ago, sezze said:

Love the idea , but difficult to do . Some Thai people do have quite long fingers sort of speak ... many will be stolen fast .

surely the panels will be broken often as the locals throw their trash into the canal without caring ....

[Crossy]

Some off-topic posts have been removed, mainly because the bickering started.

[KhaoYai]

23 hours ago, sezze said:

This is what i never did understand . Having a solar farm , doesn't mean you can't do anything more with it  . Yes i know , that's always what they do , but it doesn't have to be . Plenty of plants/vegetables are grown in shadow area .

I think we have to look at it as farming is in large parts of the world and yes, sadly Thailand is going the same way.  That is that traditional farming is being replaced by 'Agribusiness' - the relatively miniscule prices we pay for just about the most important thing in our lives means that there is just no money in it for traditional small scale farmers.  It would not surprise me at all if 'Agribusiness' is not behind the suppression of prices as a way of 'engineering' land into their ownership - they can raise prices later.

 

Its another 'wrong turn' in my opinion and one that will be paid for later - one of the reasons being that 'Agribusiness' doesn't give a damn about the environment - profit and their all important shareholders take precedent over everything.

 

Anyone who thinks it won't happen in Thailand, it already is - CP foods have been buying up large swathes of Isaan for several years now - probably in other areas too, I wouldn't know about that.

 

It may well be possible to grow food crops in the shaded areas under and between solar panels but if it can't be harvested by machine - they just won't do it. However, as I said earlier, surely we don't need to be using up farmland when there's millions of empty roofs?

[Crossy]

There's certainly lots of "non-farming" space, over the khlongs for example (nudging the thread back on-topic).

 

There's also a lot of large flat (easy to install) roof spaces, a look at Google maps in satellite mode will show a lot (not all, yet) of business places with solar on the roof.

 

Just in our area Future Park Rangsit, Mega Home, Global House and Makro all have a lot of panels which will be at peak output when they need it most (daytime A/C).

 

Small scale domestic solar is certainly happening here, mostly people with a few panels and a small grid-tie inverter offsetting their bills without going for feed-in or the like.

 

[Tropposurfer]

20 hours ago, motdaeng said:

similar idea made in switzerland ...

 

 

looks like sewage works? smart space saving in a small area country ... and, minimises evaporation and the reuse of the water that comes out of the works

[Tropposurfer]

In parts of my home country -Australia roof mounted solar is very popular and now that battery technology is getting so much better over a few years the huge bills encountered actually reverse themselves.

The puzzle of educating people, and then maintaining any installations on homes is an issue as others have said. Maybe a government support program with regular maintenance calls yearly as part of plans or funding etc might help?

[Dickp]

Solar panels for home use is the best way to reduced government cost of importing oil and NG.  I look at cost of installing panels on my house some 20 years ago . The cost then was way out of site 1,850,000 TB last month the house next to me install a set of 9 panels on two roof areas of they house. the cost around 250,000 TB.  I found a old ( 4 -5 yr) Home Pro paper giving the cost for 5 panels at around 1,460,000 TB. That shows you how the price has dropped.  But it's to late for me at 79 and repayment of the less cost of run off the Grid is about 9 years with my health how I will not make it that long. But if your young it's a well put investment in you home. I installed solar water heart on my roof 15 years ago, bust thing I did for the house have hot water all 3 bathrooms, 2 kitchens and for the wash machine. My Electric bill drop about 700+ per month and paid for unit in 8 years. 

[tjo o tjim]

I like the idea of floating panels on reservoirs best— reduces evaporation and produces power. 
 

I have not seen any great ideas on combining solar and agriculture that don’t create issues for harvesting or structural support, although the moving tray systems that they use for (indoor) pot farming and high value crops might work well to limit panel height.