21/08/2026
We love this!
Solar farms usually need large stretches of open land. India found another place to put them: directly above water that was already flowing through irrigation canals.
The idea took shape in Gujarat.
In 2012, a 1-megawatt pilot project was installed above about 750 metres of the Narmada canal near Chandrasan village in Mehsana district. Instead of occupying valuable land, the panels used the empty space above the canal while shading the water underneath.
That shade created a second benefit. The original project was estimated to prevent around 9 million litres of water from evaporating every year while generating roughly 1.6 million kilowatt-hours of electricity annually.
Gujarat then went much bigger.
A 10-megawatt canal-top plant was commissioned on the Vadodara Branch Canal in November 2014. Stretching about 5.5 kilometres and using roughly 33,800 solar panels, it generated 16.2 million units of electricity in its first year.
According to Sardar Sarovar Narmada Nigam estimates reported by Reuters, that larger project avoided using about 16 hectares of land and could prevent roughly 90 million litres of water from evaporating each year.
One piece of infrastructure was suddenly doing three jobs at once: carrying irrigation water, producing electricity above it and helping preserve both water and land.
Sometimes the smartest place for a solar farm is a space that was already there.
