Solar panels from a smaller pilot project are shown, Tuesday, June 6, 2023, a water treatment plant in Millburn, N.J., where a larger array of floating solar panels provides enough electricity to power 95% of the treatment facilities electrical needs. (AP Photo/Wayne Parry)
By Wayne Parry
New Jersey's Canoe Brook Water Treatment plant produces 14 millions gallons of drinking water a day.
Each one of those gallons weighs around 8 pounds , so it's quickly apparent that a large amount of energy is needed to move water from a reservoir to the treatment plant and into the 84,000 homes and businesses that the New Jersey American Water Company serves in the area.
So the water utility partnered with NJR Clean Energy Ventures, the renewable energy subsidiary of the natural gas firm New Jersey Resources, for a solution.
NJR Clean Energy Ventures built a vast array of solar panels, linked them together, and placed them on the surface of the water at Canoe Brook Reservoir.
The companies say the 17-acre solar array, consisting of 16,510 solar panels, is the largest floating solar array in North America — about twice the size of the next-largest facility, an array of floating panels on a body of water in Sayreville, New Jersey owned by that municipality.
The Millburn facility, which began operating in January, produces 8.9 megawatts of electricity, enough to power 1,400 homes.
But the power doesn't go to residential customers. Instead, it provides 95% of the water treatment plant's substantial energy requirements.
“It takes a lot of energy to pump that water,” said Mark McDonough, president of New Jersey American Water. “When we can use a cleaner, greener, more efficient energy source, we want to seize that opportunity.”
Long popular in Asia, floating solar arrays are starting to catch on in the U.S.
A study published in the journal Nature Sustainability in March found that thousands of cities -- more than 6,000 in 124 countries -- could generate an amount equal to all their electricity demand using floating solar, making it a climate solution to be taken seriously.
Neither company would say how much it cost to build the New Jersey solar facility, although Robert Pohlman, vice president of NJR Clean Energy Ventures, said, “It's a project that makes a lot of sense for both organizations.”
The Sayreville solar array, which is about half the size of the one in Millburn, cost $7.2 million to build, according to RETTEW, the Lancaster, Pennsylvania-based company that built it.
Shawn LaTourette, New Jersey's environmental protection commissioner, said the project enables the companies “to chip away at the rather considerable energy use of our water systems.”
Because salt water corrodes the equipment, floating solar arrays are generally placed on man-made bodies of fresh water such as reservoirs or holding basins for water treatment plants.
Putting solar panels atop plastic floats that are moored to the bottom of the reservoir helps reduce evaporation of water into the air, and the temperature of the water helps cool the solar panels, enabling them to work more efficiently, officials said.
Apple has taken down an app that uses crowdsourcing to flag sightings of U.S. immigration agents after coming under pressure from the Trump administration.
Former Cisco Systems CEO John Chambers learned all about technology’s volatile highs and lows as a veteran of the internet’s early boom days during the late 1990s and the ensuing meltdown that followed the mania. And now he is seeing potential signs of the cycle repeating with another transformative technology in artificial intelligence. Chambers is trying take some of the lessons he learned while riding a wave that turned Cisco into the world's most valuable company in 2000 before a crash hammered its stock price and apply them as an investor in AI startups. He recently discussed AI's promise and perils during an interview with The Associated Press.
Tesla reported a surprise increase in sales in the third quarter as the electric car maker likely benefited from a rush by consumers to take advantage of a $7,500 credit before it expired on Sept. 30. The company reported Thursday that sales in the three months through September rose 7% compared to the same period a year ago. The gain follows two quarters of steep declines as people turned off by CEO Elon Musk’s foray into right-wing politics avoided buying his company’s cars and even protested at some dealerships. Sales rose to 497,099 vehicles, compared with 462,890 in the same period last year.
OpenAI could now be the world’s most valuable startup, ahead of Elon Musk’s SpaceX and TikTok parent company ByteDance, after a secondary stock sale designed to retain employees at the ChatGPT maker. Current and former OpenAI employees sold $6.6 billion in shares to a group of investors, pushing the privately held artificial intelligence company’s valuation to $500 billion, according to a source with knowledge of the deal who was not authorized to discuss it publicly. The valuation reflects high expectations for the future of AI technology and continues OpenAI’s remarkable trajectory from its start as a nonprofit research lab in 2015.
Tom’s Guide Editor-in-Chief Mark Spoonauer breaks down Apple & Amazon's latest product drops—what's hot, what's hype, and what really matters for users.
Police in Northern California pulled over a self-driving Waymo taxi after it made an illegal U-turn. But without a driver behind the wheel, they could not issue a moving violation ticket.
With satellites already in orbit, defense contractor L3Harris is standing by to accelerate Trump's executive order. We take an inside look at the technology
Electronic Arts, the video game maker of “Madden NFL,” “The Sims,” and other popular titles, is being acquired and taken private for about $52.5 billion in what could become the largest-ever buyout funded by private-equity firms.
