[ti:Floating Solar Panels Becoming Popular] [by:www.51voa.com] [00:00.00]更多听力请访问51VOA.COM [00:00.04]Joe Seaman-Graves is the city planner [00:03.80]for the small town of Cohoes, New York. [00:08.60]He was in search of a less costly way [00:12.28]of providing electricity to the town. [00:16.12]There was no extra land to build on. [00:19.92]But Cohoes does have a nearly 6-hectare water reservoir. [00:27.32]Seaman-Graves looked up the term "floating solar" on Google. [00:33.48]He was not familiar with the technology, [00:36.92]which has long been a popular way [00:39.92]to produce clean energy in Asia. [00:43.84]Seaman-Graves learned that the town's water reservoir [00:47.96]could hold enough solar panels to power all city buildings. [00:53.40]And that would save the city more than $500,000 each year. [01:00.96]Floating solar panel projects have seen quick growth [01:05.12]as a new form of clean energy in the United States and Asia. [01:11.56]Floating solar panes are sought after not just for their clean power, [01:17.36]but also because they save water by preventing evaporation. [01:23.56]A recent study that appeared in Nature Sustainability [01:28.48]found that more than 6,000 cities in 124 countries [01:35.48]could produce all of their electricity demand using floating solar. [01:42.20]It also found that the panels could save the cities [01:47.16]enough water each year to fill 40 million Olympic-sized swimming pools. [01:55.12]Zhenzhong Zeng is a professor at the Southern University [02:00.24]of Science and Technology in Shenzhen, China. [02:04.96]He worked on the study. [02:07.28]He said American states like Florida, Nevada and California [02:12.92]could produce more power with floating solar than they need. [02:18.88]The idea of floating solar is simple: [02:22.24]attach panels on structures that float on water. [02:26.44]The panels serve as a cover [02:29.68]that reduces evaporation to nearly zero. [02:33.84]The water keeps the panels cool. [02:36.76]This permits them to produce more electricity [02:40.48]than land-based solar panels, [02:43.72]which lose efficiency when they get too hot. [02:49.08]One of the floating solar farms in the U.S. [02:53.08]is the 4.8-megawatt project in Healdsburg, California. [02:59.92]It was built by Ciel & Terre. [03:04.12]The company has built 270 projects in 30 countries. [03:10.16]Chris Bartle of Ciel & Terre estimated that floating solar [03:16.40]costs 10 to 15 percent more than land solar at first. [03:23.84]But the technology saves money long term. [03:28.48]Deeper water can increase setup costs, [03:32.24]and the technology cannot operate on fast-moving water, [03:37.00]on the open ocean or on coastlines with very large waves. [03:43.40]Problems can come up if the solar panels cover [03:47.44]too much of a water body's surface. [03:50.84]That could change the water temperature and harm underwater life. [03:57.04]Researchers are looking into [03:59.28]whether the electromagnetic fields from floating panels [04:03.96]could affect underwater ecosystems. [04:07.60]However, there is no evidence of that yet. [04:12.24]In Cohoes, public officials are preparing for the setup [04:16.52]of their project later this year. [04:19.44]The project will cost an estimated $6.5 million. [04:26.16]Seaman-Graves said he believes his town's floating solar project [04:31.72]can serve as an example for other American cities. [04:36.12]"We are an environmental justice community [04:40.04]and we see a big opportunity [04:42.48]for low to moderate income cities [04:45.24]to replicate what we're doing," he said. [04:49.88]I'm Ashley Thompson. 更多听力请访问51VOA.COM