Recently my news feed offered this tech news to me and I read with a big interest because a few months ago I was thinking about the same idea.

Good to see US is making its first steps into this direction, and a note a similar project has already been accomplished in India.

As everything new, it has its pros and cons, here are some of them:

Pros

• Effective area usage. I can't think of anything else useful built on top of water canals, can you?

• Panels provide shade this reducing water evaporation

• The shade also reduces the weed growing and decreases the maintenance costs

Cons

• Canals maintenance becomes more complicated

• The construction holding the panels costs more than usual

• With increased metal prices for the more expensive contstruction it is not certain the economical effect is reasonable.

• In high-crime areas the security detail on the PV installations would cost a lot.

Anything else?

Here is the article: https://www.euronews.com/green/2023/07/24/solar-panels-on-water-canals-seem-like-a-no-brainer-so-why-arent-they-widespread

Image sourced from the same article.