Project Nexus: First-in-the-Nation Solar Over Canals Project

On Episode 11 of the TID Water & Power Podcast we sit down with TID’s Josh Weimer to discuss the Project Nexus, the District's solar panels over canals project.

In February, TID announced Project Nexus, a pilot project to install 5 megawatts of solar panel canopies over our existing irrigation canals – the first project of its kind in the nation. The $20 million project, which is funded by the California Department of Water Resources, will not only benefit TID, but if successful, could become a template with potential to be replicated elsewhere in the state to help California achieve its water and energy goals.

On this episode we discuss discuss the benefits of Project Nexus, how TID became the agency to pilot the project, and how the District plans on implementing this unique project. 

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Facebook: @TurlockID
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Twitter: @TurlockID
LinkedIn: /company/turlockid

Find out more about TID at https://www.TID.org/podcast.

Transcript

00;00;06;00 - 00;00;31;02
Speaker 1
Hello and welcome to the TID Water and Power Podcast. I'm your host, Constance Anderson. And on this month's episode we're discussing Project Nexus TID's, solar panels over canals projects. On February 8th, 2020 to Turlock, Irrigation District announced Project Nexus, a pilot project to install five megawatts of solar panel canopies over our existing irrigation canals.

00;00;31;13 - 00;00;49;28
Speaker 1
The first project of its kind in the nation, the $20 million project, which is funded by the California Department of Water Resources, will not only benefit TID, but if successful, could become a template with the potential to be replicaTID elsewhere in the state to help California achieve its water and energy goals.

00;00;50;17 - 00;01;06;13
Speaker 1
On this episode, I'm joined by External Affairs Manager Josh Weimer to discuss the benefits of Project Nexus, how it became the agency to pilot the project and the district's plans on implementing this unique project. Josh, thanks for joining us.

00;01;07;12 - 00;01;08;04
Speaker 2
Thanks for having me.

00;01;08;29 - 00;01;16;26
Speaker 1
Why don't you start by telling us a little bit about your current role at the District and how you became the External Affairs Department manager?

00;01;17;08 - 00;01;34;14
Speaker 2
So I've been with Ted for seven years. I was initially hired on as the legislative analyst. In that role, I would read and analyze all pieces of state and federal legislation and then advocate on behalf of TID and our rate payers both in Sacramento and Washington, D.C..

00;01;35;03 - 00;01;47;08
Speaker 2
I was in that role for a couple of years, and then after that I became the government affairs manager. And so in addition to the legislative component, I also started to oversee our water and energy regulatory advocacy as well.

00;01;47;23 - 00;02;00;21
Speaker 2
And then two years ago, I was promoted to the external affairs manager position, which still oversees the government affairs advocacy, but also oversees our communications in our energy services, which is our customer programs and our rebates.

00;02;01;05 - 00;02;05;18
Speaker 1
Okay. So then what is your specific role with Project Nexus?

00;02;06;13 - 00;02;22;12
Speaker 2
We'll touch on this a little bit later. But there's so many different departments and people involved in Project Nexus. My role is really the public information kind of external affairs facing both government and just public in interviews, podcasts like this, talking about the project.

00;02;23;26 - 00;02;30;12
Speaker 1
Awesome. Well, we're excited to have you here to to tell us about the project. So let's start at a high level. What is Project Nexus?

00;02;31;00 - 00;02;51;07
Speaker 2
Project Nexus is the a pilot project that's going to serve as a proof of concept for a academic research paper that came out last year from UC Merced that looked at if we covered all 4000 miles of canals and aqueducts in California, what would be the benefits, both in terms of water supply and water quality and renewable

00;02;51;07 - 00;02;52;09
Speaker 2
energy generated?

00;02;53;11 - 00;02;58;13
Speaker 1
Awesome. And this is not something that is venturing into alone. We have partners on this project.

00;02;58;16 - 00;03;18;07
Speaker 2
We do. This is really a new thing for TID. It is a public private academic partnership. And so there's four main partners to obviously the state of California through Department of Water Resources, a private company called Solar Aqua Grid, and then the UC Merced system for the research component.

00;03;18;28 - 00;03;30;08
Speaker 1
Excellent. And you you mentioned a moment ago that it was UC Merced said that created this study and that's kind of where the concept for Project Nexus came from. Can you elaborate on that a little bit?

00;03;30;20 - 00;03;50;19
Speaker 2
Yeah. So you see more said along with SoCal Grid started developing this concept of what would happen if we covered all of California's canal infrastructure. What solar panel? What would the potential benefits be? And so they started this study back in 2015, did initial studies, and then it went through the peer review process.

00;03;50;19 - 00;04;08;04
Speaker 2
And then last year they issued this report that really had worldwide notice about the potential benefits of water savings through evaporation, loss or quality benefits in all of the renewable energy that would be generaTID using the existing land of California's water infrastructure.

00;04;08;20 - 00;04;18;10
Speaker 1
Okay. So you mentioned that UC Merced had completed the study. Can you tell us a little bit more about what some of the findings of that study were?

00;04;18;27 - 00;04;39;06
Speaker 2
There are a lot of benefits that were shown in this study, both in terms of water supply and renewable energy generated. The main focus was if we were to cover all 4000 miles of canals and aqueducts in California, that there would be 63 billion gallons of savings for water due to evaporation losses.

00;04;39;26 - 00;04;52;07
Speaker 2
In the way that we talk about water, that translates to just under 200,000 acre feet. But there's also the renewable energy component of this and generating 13 gigawatts of renewable power.

00;04;53;02 - 00;04;59;17
Speaker 1
So this is a first in the nation project. Has something like this been done outside of the U.S. yet?

00;04;59;17 - 00;05;14;23
Speaker 2
The concept of putting solar panels over canals isn't necessarily anything new. The concepts been out there. We've we've considered it before, but it has been done in India. And the way that they did it in India was a little bit different than how we're looking at doing it here.

00;05;15;08 - 00;05;29;00
Speaker 2
They have a different mounting technology. They put it really just right on top of the the canal system. They also put a pole in the middle of the canal to brace the structure. And so it's different than how we're looking at it.

00;05;29;00 - 00;05;48;20
Speaker 2
We're going to be not having the infrastructure in the canal and we're going to be studying how to span a wide section through mounting it differently. But the researchers, we have been in contact with India to see what they learned and what they were able to study and how we can improve on that.

00;05;48;29 - 00;05;55;05
Speaker 2
And also things that they wish that they had the opportunity to study or are going to try to incorporate that into this new research project.

00;05;55;11 - 00;06;05;25
Speaker 1
Absolutely. Learn from from what others have done before us. So this project is a big deal. How did Turlock Irrigation District get involved with such a trailblazing project?

00;06;06;22 - 00;06;22;15
Speaker 2
Yeah. This is, as you mentioned, first in the nation and this is really exciting. And for it to be the oldest irrigation district in the state, California, not a lot of people might think that we're trailblazing new technology, even though we are on so many different fronts.

00;06;22;27 - 00;06;37;23
Speaker 2
When UC Merced released their study last year really caught the attention of the entire water sector. And everybody looked at this study with a certain amount of interest, although there was some trepidation about how could this actually be done.

00;06;38;13 - 00;07;00;02
Speaker 2
Our general manager, Michelle Reimers, she picked up the phone and called the lead researcher and she was curious, she was interested. And that began a series of meetings to talk about the study, what went into it, looking at TID and our canal infrastructure, doing site visits and months and months of meetings led us to the point where

00;07;01;11 - 00;07;07;15
Speaker 2
, for a variety of reasons, was selected as the perfect spot to pilot this technology.

00;07;08;02 - 00;07;23;25
Speaker 1
Great. And I would imagine also being one of only four irrigation districts in the state that deliver both irrigation, water and retail power that just furthered the the fit with partnering with with UC Merced and others on this project.

00;07;23;28 - 00;07;38;25
Speaker 2
Absolutely. This is a water project and an energy project. And so to being an irrigation district, but also providing energy to over 100,000 accounts, this this is a perfect combination of both of the services that we provide.

00;07;39;08 - 00;07;47;17
Speaker 1
Awesome. And you mentioned earlier that the California Department of Water Resources is also involved. What is their interest in the project?

00;07;48;02 - 00;08;05;01
Speaker 2
The state is very interested. And so the legislature wrote in $20 million into the state's budget last year to specifically study putting solar panels over aqueducts in California. And so DWR are is the agency that is allocating that funding.

00;08;05;01 - 00;08;15;01
Speaker 2
And so we're working very closely with them to make sure that our pilot and what we're studying helps meet their goals and what they need to know to see if this is something that they could potentially do in the future.

00;08;15;08 - 00;08;32;18
Speaker 1
Absolutely. Yeah. Widespread benefits for throughout the state. So the concept of solar over canals has been discussed previously. You mentioned it was it has been implemented in India. Why did TID decide that this was the right time to get involved?

00;08;33;08 - 00;08;47;13
Speaker 2
Really? The UC Merced said study brought it back to our attention and we were able to look at it with a fresh set of eyes and see, is this something that we could do that helps us meet our water saving water efficiency goals and also our renewable goals?

00;08;47;18 - 00;09;05;27
Speaker 2
So we're well on our way to meet our renewable energy mandates, but we need additional renewable energy. And in our area, because of our reliable supply of surface water, we have some of the most productive ag land in the country and with that, some of the most expensive agriculture land.

00;09;05;27 - 00;09;21;26
Speaker 2
And so if we want to procure land to put, say, a utility scale solar project, land value and land cost of that project is very high. And so it drives up the overall cost, which because we're community owned, every dollar gets passed on to our ratepayers.

00;09;21;26 - 00;09;43;09
Speaker 2
And so we're constantly looking for ways to mitigate the cost of these projects overall. And so since we have 250 miles of canals, the idea and the concept of removing out the land cost from these these projects and potentially bringing down the overall project is something that we're very interested in for a scalability factor moving forward.

00;09;44;10 - 00;09;59;05
Speaker 1
That makes total sense. And you you mentioned the cost of the land just because our our ag land is so valuable. But there's also the cost of taking that ag land out of production for whatever crops might have been been grown there.

00;09;59;28 - 00;10;12;06
Speaker 1
So I can see where using existing infrastructure, using property that we already own makes a ton of sense and just capitalizing, sort of double dipping in a way on the productivity of that existing infrastructure.

00;10;12;15 - 00;10;35;16
Speaker 2
Absolutely. We're an ag based economy and so TID don't want to be putting in a project that removes valuable ag production from our local economy. That's not what we do. But the idea and the concept that we have this existing land, this existing infrastructure, and we could potentially use that to meet our renewable goals and potentially provide

00;10;35;16 - 00;10;49;03
Speaker 2
a value to our irrigation customers as well is something that we thought that this is something that we should explore and we should go through the process and see if this is a valuable addition to our water and energy portfolio.

00;10;49;17 - 00;11;05;19
Speaker 1
Excellent. And I want to go back to the renewable component, because some of our listeners might not realize that TID is charged with meeting certain goals and certain mandates. So can you talk a little bit about that and how this project potentially fits into that?

00;11;05;24 - 00;11;26;17
Speaker 2
Yeah, as an electric utility, we have quite a few mandates that we have to meet. This one specifically is a renewable energy mandate and a carbon free energy mandate. And so by 2030, we need to have 60% of our portfolio to be renewable and renewable as defined in a very specific way that maybe doesn't allow us to

00;11;26;17 - 00;11;42;04
Speaker 2
count our largest renewable resource, which is Don Pedro. And then there's also a 100% zero carbon goal by 2045 that we need to meet. Things important to note that we have enough energy to meet our customers demand right now.

00;11;42;04 - 00;11;58;16
Speaker 2
And so these mandates in a lot of ways are just additional things that we have to procure to meet the state mandate, not necessarily to meet our customer's load and their need. So moving forward, we have to procure a significant portion of renewable energy.

00;11;58;16 - 00;12;20;15
Speaker 2
And so we're constantly looking for projects and ways to minimize that cost. And so this project, obviously being a pilot, being funded by the state of California, meets those requirements and meets our goals. But it also provides us a potential path forward to minimizing future renewable procurements by removing out that land cost barrier.

00;12;21;06 - 00;12;40;03
Speaker 1
And as you mentioned, this is a pilot project, so it's a smaller scale. But again, you mentioned has the that's one of the things we're going to be studying, right, is the potential scalability. So if we do this on one portion of our canals now, there's the potential to expand that and thus increase TID's renewable portfolio in

00;12;40;03 - 00;12;40;15
Speaker 1
that way.

00;12;40;20 - 00;13;01;26
Speaker 2
Exactly. This this is a small pilot, but this pilot really has some huge potential for TID for the state of California and really for the country to see. Can we prove what this academic paper said is true in the real world and can we see both the water and energy benefits?

00;13;02;03 - 00;13;09;15
Speaker 2
And if so, this is a maybe a potential path forward for TID and other similar water agencies in California.

00;13;10;12 - 00;13;19;27
Speaker 1
All right. So beyond the renewable energy benefit, there's also the potential for savings as related to water as well. Can you tell us about those?

00;13;20;19 - 00;13;44;24
Speaker 2
The study looked at if we covered these canals with solar panels, what would be the water benefit? And they identified a few main beneficiaries. The first one that they highlighted would be water savings through evaporation loss. So this is putting the panels over the canals, providing shading, providing a wind block that would then lead to less evaporation

00;13;45;01 - 00;14;01;08
Speaker 2
. So that's something that we're interested in looking at. I think one of the more interesting components is the reduction in aquatic growth in the canals because of that shading and what that would mean in terms of our reduction in maintenance.

00;14;01;25 - 00;14;18;07
Speaker 2
We have 250 miles of canals now. It gets very warm in the summer and there comes a lot of weeds in the canal system. And so we spend a tremendous amount of time and resources making sure that those weeds are removed and not in any way blocking side gates or drops.

00;14;18;14 - 00;14;36;17
Speaker 2
And so the potential that this pilot project would show that there is a reduction in maintenance is very interesting and very exciting for us, because if that is true, that would be a significant benefit to TID and our irrigation customers.

00;14;36;18 - 00;14;51;26
Speaker 1
Sure, absolutely. Reducing maintenance, also reducing some of the wear and tear on our system. So, yeah, that seems to that seems like it would be a huge benefit. All right. So TID learns of the study and reaches out to UC Merced.

00;14;52;07 - 00;15;00;03
Speaker 1
What do you think it was about Turlock Irrigation District that made you? UC Merced, Say yeah, this is the right irrigation agency to partner with.

00;15;00;19 - 00;15;17;19
Speaker 2
Honestly, I think it was our willingness to entertain the option. There were a lot of water agencies and it's understandable that they thought this would change the way that we currently operate. This would provide maybe new hurdles that we have to figure out a way around.

00;15;17;28 - 00;15;36;09
Speaker 2
And that's all true. This will change some of how we deliver water and maintain our canals. But the potential benefits, there's so much upside that our management team, our board was interested in exploring those opportunities and seeing is this something that we can do?

00;15;36;14 - 00;15;58;11
Speaker 2
And we were excited about the opportunity. Obviously, we're just 20 miles away from UC Merced, so there was a nice relationship there where it's right in their backyard and they could do the study. And so having both the water and energy component within one agency, removing potential barriers and other government agencies that have to get in the

00;15;58;11 - 00;16;14;14
Speaker 2
way in terms of permitting. And one thing that's important to note that our irrigation system, our electrical system in most spots runs right along that. And so the point of interconnection between the solar panels and our electrical system can happen right there.

00;16;14;23 - 00;16;24;18
Speaker 2
And so it really made a lot of sense. And I think when we showed that to UC Merced they were very interested and saw our willingness and wanted to partner with us.

00;16;25;15 - 00;16;37;17
Speaker 1
So I can see why UC Merced would would consider TID a good partner. What else about TID? And kind of the way we approach things makes this a good partnership for us.

00;16;38;21 - 00;16;55;08
Speaker 2
You know, as the first irrigation district in California. And we're actually celebrating our 135th anniversary this year. Over those 135 years, we've been at the cutting edge of a lot of new technologies and a new ways to both serve our customers irrigation, water and electricity.

00;16;55;08 - 00;17;11;29
Speaker 2
And so really, this fits within, you know, our core values, our mission at TID and seeking new and innovative ways to really do our two core main functions, which is to provide a reliable and affordable irrigation water and electricity to our customers.

00;17;12;09 - 00;17;15;07
Speaker 2
This fits exactly in with what we love to do.

00;17;16;04 - 00;17;26;21
Speaker 1
That's awesome. All right. Let's talk now a little bit about the partners on the project. Would you tell us again who the partners are and kind of what each of their roles are as they pertain to Project Nexus?

00;17;27;03 - 00;17;50;23
Speaker 2
Yeah, there's four main partners in this project and like I mentioned before, it is a public, private and academic partnership and something new for TID. And so on the public side, there's obviously TID a publicly owned electric utility, but there's the state of California and specifically Department of Water Resources, and they are providing the funding and technical assistance

00;17;50;28 - 00;18;11;23
Speaker 2
for this project. They're very interested, and they have a large investment in seeing the outcome of this pilot project. On the academic side, we have the University of California system, specifically UC Merced, and they are bringing the research arm of this.

00;18;11;29 - 00;18;25;20
Speaker 2
There's a lot that we're going to be studying, not just the results, but how we actually build the project as well. And so the research is building on that paper that was released last year. And then on the private side is solar aqua grid.

00;18;25;26 - 00;18;40;26
Speaker 2
And they really were the genesis for this concept and working with UC Merced on this concept and studying what it would actually look like. And so they bring the program coordination and expertize of this concept to the to the pilot.

00;18;41;16 - 00;19;03;06
Speaker 1
I'm picturing these four dynamic partners, each super heroes in their own fields, using their unique power to bring Project Nexus to fruition. And I really think there's a blockbuster movie in here somewhere. So I was aware, as I'm thinking about the promotional material for the project Nexus, the movie, let me ask, how did the name Project Nexus

00;19;03;06 - 00;19;03;24
Speaker 1
come about?

00;19;04;25 - 00;19;27;16
Speaker 2
That's a great question. In the water and energy field in our industry, there's this concept of the water energy nexus. And really that boils down to in the treating and transportation and movement of water, it requires a tremendous amount of energy and then the generation of energy requires a lot of water.

00;19;27;16 - 00;19;46;25
Speaker 2
And so really the water energy nexus was is a way for us to look at these resources and how can we better use them? How can they enter in or operate to be more effective? And so this project, project nexus builds on that foundation, but goes so much further.

00;19;47;04 - 00;20;11;00
Speaker 2
We are using our existing canal infrastructure and putting solar panels over the top of that. Not only will the solar panels provide shading, which then we'll be able to help us with evaporation and reduction in quite growth. But that water underneath the solar panels changes the temperature underneath the solar panels, making those panels more efficient.

00;20;11;10 - 00;20;28;16
Speaker 2
And so there are so many levels that this goes beyond the traditional water energy nexus that we really think that this is the new way of integrating water and energy together. And this builds on TID's historical stewardship in the water energy nexus space.

00;20;28;24 - 00;20;49;14
Speaker 2
We've been providing carbon free energy since 1923 was the when we built old Don Pedro and the first powerhouse there. And not only have we used that resource for The water energy nexus, but our canal system, we have many hydroelectric systems within our canal system that provide carbon free energy right now.

00;20;49;14 - 00;21;08;01
Speaker 2
And so really this just builds on using our existing infrastructure to both serve our irrigation and our electrical customers. And so we think that this project nexus is the culmination of the water energy nexus and will chart a new path forward in that nexus.

00;21;08;11 - 00;21;25;17
Speaker 1
Right on. Okay. So this this project feels like it's very much at the core of what TID does. Can you tell us a little bit about the various corners of the of the district of TID that will be involved in making Project Nexus happen?

00;21;26;01 - 00;21;45;28
Speaker 2
I think it's safe to say that almost every department is going to have their hands in this project or this project is going to impact them in one way or the other. Starting at the most basic level, we have the civil engineering department of how this actually is going to impact and be built it to not impact

00;21;45;28 - 00;22;05;29
Speaker 2
our canal system and also our regulating reservoirs. But then you have the electrical engineering side too of how are we going to take all this renewable energy and energy storage to connect that into our electric grid? We have construction and maintenance, which has a very large role in this because they're the ones that are tasked with ensuring

00;22;05;29 - 00;22;23;16
Speaker 2
that our canal system, which is over 100 years old, is able to deliver reliable water to our growers. And so making sure that they're able to maintain and potentially rehab any kind of issues that arise near the the section is critically important.

00;22;24;06 - 00;22;39;06
Speaker 2
But then we have electronics because of all the new technology, water distribution, clearly running water underneath these sections of canal, making sure that it doesn't impact them is very important. But we have security and safety. We have our power control center.

00;22;39;12 - 00;22;54;09
Speaker 2
And utilizing this new generation resource and distributing it into the electric grid, there are so many different components that really this is going to touch every single part of TID.

00;22;55;07 - 00;23;12;03
Speaker 1
Absolutely. That's a sounds like a lot of really brilliant people collaborating to make this project happen. That's awesome. Okay, so. Let's talk now about what we're all working towards. What are the goals that have been identified for Project Nexus?

00;23;13;05 - 00;23;29;14
Speaker 2
For TID. We have some very specific goals of what we're looking to study. We're really looking to demonstrate the proof of concept of how to span our canal system. Our canal system, like I mentioned, is 250 miles. There are all different shapes and sizes, all different directions.

00;23;29;14 - 00;23;45;06
Speaker 2
And so we want to be able to demonstrate how to do different sections of our canal. How to put solar panels over that. So that's really the first one. Another goal is to increase our renewable generation. As I mentioned before, we need additional sources.

00;23;45;06 - 00;24;10;08
Speaker 2
And this is this is five megawatts of additional solar power. And so that's that's clearly a goal, experiencing water quality improvements, like I mentioned earlier, with the reduction in aquatic growth underneath our solar panels, that's something that we're very focused on, seeing if there's any evaporation, savings and additional water supply benefits in years like this.

00;24;10;08 - 00;24;29;19
Speaker 2
Obviously, a third year of a drought, any new water is a benefit and is needed. And then we have we're very interested to see how energy storage can work with the the solar system, work with our local electric grid to provide a balancing function.

00;24;29;19 - 00;24;33;06
Speaker 2
And so really, those are the main things that we're interested in studying.

00;24;34;16 - 00;24;49;12
Speaker 1
That's a tall list. But also you can clearly see the the multitude of benefits that that could come from this learning. Okay. So the UC Merced study investigated the potential of placing solar panels over 4000 miles of canals throughout the entire state.

00;24;50;02 - 00;25;02;04
Speaker 1
As we mentioned, this is a pilot project and thus much smaller. But what is the actual overall size with regard to both the physical size of project nexus as well as the potential amount of energy produced?

00;25;02;28 - 00;25;21;09
Speaker 2
This is a small scale pilot project and really we're looking at less than two miles of our canal system and this is really focused on two specific locations. The first phase is 4000 linear feet of solar panels over a canal that is going east to west.

00;25;21;18 - 00;25;40;19
Speaker 2
And those panels are going to be facing south. And that's going to generate about two megawatts at that location. And then the other phase at that first location will go around the the Ceres regulating reservoir that we're going to be constructing this year as part of one of our water efficiencies projects.

00;25;40;29 - 00;25;58;12
Speaker 2
And that is going to wrap around three sides of that reservoir. And so what that shows us is different directions that the panels will face and different mounting technologies based off of where the canals go. And so that second phase in that first location is going to be two megawatts.

00;25;58;20 - 00;26;14;23
Speaker 2
And so at that first location in Ceres is four megawatts. The canals at the first location are roughly 20 to 25 feet across. And so we're going to be studying how do we span that width of a canal system?

00;26;15;02 - 00;26;34;01
Speaker 2
The second location is much wider. This canal section is on the main canal and it's 110 feet wide. And so we're going to be studying how do you span such a wide section? And really, this is DWR is very focused on this section because of their California aqueduct and how wide that is.

00;26;34;09 - 00;26;46;10
Speaker 2
So at this one location, we're looking at, you know, five, 600 feet of panels. But because of how wide that system is, 500, 600 feet creates one megawatt of of solar generation at that location.

00;26;48;01 - 00;26;56;09
Speaker 1
So a total then of five megawatts. And and for our listeners, what does that equate to as far as the amount of power produced?

00;26;56;19 - 00;27;05;09
Speaker 2
Five megawatts would roughly provide all of the energy that over 800 homes in our service territory would use annually.

00;27;05;23 - 00;27;10;02
Speaker 1
So how did we decide at what locations we would initiate this project?

00;27;10;25 - 00;27;27;10
Speaker 2
That's a great question because as I mentioned, we have 250 miles of canals. And so really our surveying team looked at all of our irrigation canals and then compared that with our electrical infrastructure to see where did it make the most sense to tie into our electrical grid.

00;27;27;20 - 00;27;47;09
Speaker 2
After looking at dozens of locations. They decided that these two spots provided the most amount of benefit to our irrigation customers and also our electrical grid. And so they looked at on the irrigation side are these sections that require a certain level of maintenance right now.

00;27;47;11 - 00;28;04;19
Speaker 2
And then by putting these solar panels over it, would we be able to know if they truly do reduce the amount of maintenance that we would need to provide? And so we looked at so many different facets to select these two locations that really are able to prove the concepts in the paper.

00;28;05;10 - 00;28;23;15
Speaker 1
Okay, great. So I want to double back to one one thing you said about, you know, with the different widths of the canals in these these are initial locations for the project, you know, determining how we span the various west from 20 to 25 feet to 110 feet wide.

00;28;24;13 - 00;28;27;25
Speaker 1
How do you span that much canal with solar panels?

00;28;28;14 - 00;28;49;03
Speaker 2
That's a great question. And really, when we say that this is a pilot project and a proof of concept, it's not just studying the end results, but it's studying every step along the way. So how do you build solar that spans such a large canal system without in any way impeding what's happening below the solar panel, which

00;28;49;03 - 00;29;06;29
Speaker 2
is moving water to where our growers need it? And so that's one thing that we are looking at, studying how to do that and how to do that without using a tremendous amount of steel. And so we're really diving into some design options and, you know, going to test a couple of different ways to do it, trying

00;29;06;29 - 00;29;21;15
Speaker 2
to study what would work. And we have some really smart people on our teams, both in terms of our engineering teams and our construction and maintenance, because building the system over the canal is only one one function of this.

00;29;21;24 - 00;29;35;06
Speaker 2
How how are we going to maintain the canal that we're putting the solar panels over? And how are we going to maintain this new generation resource over a 110 foot span? And how do you maintain those panels when there's water in the system?

00;29;35;15 - 00;29;47;27
Speaker 2
How do you clean them when it's such a large space? And so that's one thing that we're really looking to study every different aspect and multiple ways of doing it to see what's the best option. Again, this is a pilot.

00;29;47;28 - 00;29;53;26
Speaker 2
We want to try out different ways of doing it and provide a roadmap for other agencies in the future.

00;29;54;10 - 00;30;11;00
Speaker 1
Absolutely. And I feel like we're kind of starting to get there already. Just talking about, you know, we're we're reaching into uncharTID territory and trying to figure out some of these mountain techniques and some of these, you know, cleaning and maintenance challenges.

00;30;11;29 - 00;30;22;29
Speaker 1
Clearly, we've talked about the number of benefits that could come from Project Nexus, but what else are what are some of the additional challenges that we are likely to face in in this project?

00;30;23;28 - 00;30;45;12
Speaker 2
One of the main challenges is really just how do we design a system that in no way impacts our ability to maintain and operate that canal system and make making sure that that we're in no way reducing the reliability of this system so that our growers can continue to receive reliable supply of irrigation water.

00;30;46;01 - 00;31;08;17
Speaker 2
And so that's something that we're designing to where we're designing and working very closely with those in the field who deliver the water, who maintain our system to say what, what are the design parameters that you have to have to make sure that if a situation arises, you're able to get into that canal, repair it, or bring

00;31;08;17 - 00;31;27;14
Speaker 2
it back up to the standard that we need to have to deliver the water. And so really, that's at the forefront of our mind to design to these these potential issues that any time that you do a first in the nation, any type of project, there's you're going to run into roadblocks and barriers.

00;31;28;01 - 00;31;49;20
Speaker 2
But we have a team here who is running headlong into those barriers and finding new ways to meet those challenges. And it's exciting to, to to see the team work in this way and really to acknowledge that there might be some barriers, but the potential benefits are well worth coming up with new ways of operating the system

00;31;49;20 - 00;32;04;24
Speaker 2
, new ways of maintaining our canal system. And so this is a, as I mentioned earlier, a very large team project. And so everybody is very excited and working towards that benefit for our customers.

00;32;06;03 - 00;32;23;05
Speaker 1
And just a note on how TID maintains it's 100 year old system. If any of our listeners are curious to know more about that, I encourage them to listen to Episode nine of the  TID Water and Power podcast, where we talk all about how we maintain our 100 plus year old system.

00;32;23;20 - 00;32;38;08
Speaker 1
And speaking of the the challenge of keeping the panels clean. Anyone who has lived through or even driven through this area during harvest knows that the valley can be a dusty place. How does the district plan to keep the panels clean?

00;32;39;00 - 00;32;50;15
Speaker 2
Yeah, that's that's a great question. And really, that's one of the the comments that we've been getting the most since we announced this project a few weeks ago. People are just very interested, concerned about how are we going to keep the panels clean.

00;32;50;15 - 00;33;01;26
Speaker 2
Because, as you mentioned, during harvest, it gets pretty dusty. And that's really one thing that we're interested in studying. Again, like I keep going back to the this is a pilot and we want to study multiple ways of doing it.

00;33;02;17 - 00;33;24;22
Speaker 2
But the industry, the solar industry, there's quite a few very interesting robotic technologies where really there's a cleaner that can go on these solar panels following a tracking mechanism. And so it removes out the, the human component of that which spanning 110 feet, that would be very difficult to have, you know, a boom lift or something to

00;33;24;22 - 00;33;46;05
Speaker 2
have somebody manually brushing off these panels. But there's quite a few different technologies of some that utilize water, some that just clean the panels without any type of water application. And so we're looking at studying potentially multiple ways of clean these panels to see what is the best for each canal system, because the one for 20 foot

00;33;46;14 - 00;33;51;13
Speaker 2
might be different than the one for 110 feet. And so we want to study these different options.

00;33;52;02 - 00;33;59;21
Speaker 1
And I would imagine none of these options include Josh Weimer, external affairs manager, out on top of the panels with a squeegee. Is that what we're looking to avoid?

00;33;59;21 - 00;34;06;08
Speaker 2
I think that would be the last resort. And I think our construction and maintenance team would not want me anywhere near some of this equipment.

00;34;06;27 - 00;34;19;19
Speaker 1
That's fair. That's probably fair. So certainly there are going to be some growing pains to work through. But gosh, what a brilliant opportunity to test all of these theories and all of these innovative techniques. That's it's really incredible.

00;34;20;21 - 00;34;37;06
Speaker 1
And obviously, there's there's a lot of benefit for UC Merced in proving out their study, but it sounds like there's an even bigger opportunity here for more widespread learning. Is that something that TID is planning for?

00;34;37;17 - 00;35;04;14
Speaker 2
That's something that we're very interested in. Building out further. Is an education component of this project TID, We obviously have quite a few different generation facilities, different irrigation facilities, and one of our most toward locations is a regulating reservoir in Hilmar that really pioneered a new way of capturing irrigation water and reducing spills and providing better efficiencies

00;35;04;14 - 00;35;28;01
Speaker 2
to our customers. And so that's a very heavily toured facility now where we're putting these solar panels and one of the locations is over a future reservoir or next to a future reservoir. And so we envision this innovation center, the Ceres Innovation Center, that has the latest in water efficiency and also renewable energy.

00;35;28;01 - 00;35;48;25
Speaker 2
And so having the wriggling reservoir right next to canals that have solar panels over them, right next to an energy storage component, is a huge education opportunity, not just for water agencies or electric providers who are interested in seeing firsthand how something works before they make a significant investment in this technology.

00;35;48;25 - 00;36;14;15
Speaker 2
But for our school districts and a hands on opportunity for students to come and see the latest technologies, to see energy generation and how it works firsthand in their backyard. And so we're excited about that. It builds on TID's efforts in our school districts of providing education on energy efficiency and irrigation practices and energy generation, but also

00;36;14;15 - 00;36;31;12
Speaker 2
to work with our UC Merced system and our Stanislaus State system and MJC. We have some great higher education institutions in our backyard and to provide this one stop shop is is of high interest of TID.

00;36;31;29 - 00;36;53;29
Speaker 1
That's fantastic. Yeah it's it's one thing to learn about it in class. It's another thing to have the opportunity to physically be there and see all of these different components coming together. Project Nexus truly sounds like the perfect illustration of so much of what TID is a generation water use, efficiency, renewable energy, being sustainably minded stewards of

00;36;53;29 - 00;37;08;20
Speaker 1
the resources that we're responsible for. It's it's going to be really fun to watch this unfold. So let's talk about some of the milestones then in bringing this project to fruition. When when do you actually anticipate Project Nexus to be complete?

00;37;09;11 - 00;37;29;18
Speaker 2
There is a lot happening right now of working on concepts for designs, working on geotechnical surveys of the soil. So we're aiming to break ground this fall on the on the first site location and to have both locations on all five megawatts fully built by the end of 2023.

00;37;30;07 - 00;37;39;10
Speaker 1
Okay. So then let's skip ahead. Both phases are complete and operational. At what point do we know if this pilot has been a success?

00;37;40;22 - 00;38;02;17
Speaker 2
So we're going to have some immediate knowledge during the construction phase and you know how the different spanning technologies worked. And we're going to know on on that level if it was successful. Now, getting in to all the academic research in UC Merced said they're going to need about a year or two to really study a baseline

00;38;02;22 - 00;38;18;21
Speaker 2
for evaporation, loss for aquatic growth and then see what those benefits are over those coming years and really develop out their model to look at is it successful based off of this pilot project? And then one thing that they're really focusing on, too, is a scalability model.

00;38;18;21 - 00;38;28;27
Speaker 2
So really diving into the details of TID this a scalable project that could happen now? And then also developing a statewide scalability model.

00;38;30;22 - 00;38;36;02
Speaker 1
All right. So then let's bring it back to the present. What are the immediate next steps for the project?

00;38;36;23 - 00;38;55;17
Speaker 2
So we're moving through all of the contractual obligations and working through all of those steps with the state in order to be able to receive the funding that they have allocated. And then we're moving forward with environmental review and geotechnical review and just concept design.

00;38;55;17 - 00;39;12;17
Speaker 2
So it is heavy in the engineering phase right now, looking at procurement and understanding if there are supply chain issues and is that going to delay our timeframe. But really, just taking all of these initial steps to lead up to that, hopefully groundbreaking this fall.

00;39;13;07 - 00;39;29;26
Speaker 1
Fantastic. All right. So we've talked about everything that the partners on the project are hoping to gain and hoping to learn from this project. But what does Project Nexus mean to the local community? What, if any, are the impacts on TID customers?

00;39;30;26 - 00;39;44;27
Speaker 2
There's multiple benefits to this project as we've covered so far in the podcast. But one of the main goals, too, of this project for TID is to mitigate against any type of interruption in the service that our customers are used to.

00;39;44;28 - 00;39;56;24
Speaker 2
So both on the irrigation side and the electrical side, we want to design this system to ensure that there is no interruption in in the service that they receive from TID.

00;39;57;28 - 00;40;04;01
Speaker 1
So Project Nexus was formally introduced last month. What has the public response been so far?

00;40;04;24 - 00;40;21;27
Speaker 2
The response has been incredible. There have been just tremendous groundswell of support from our local community, from the state, from the nation, and really from around the world of interest in this project. A lot of people, this is a no brainer.

00;40;21;27 - 00;40;42;11
Speaker 2
We have this infrastructure, let's put solar over it. And if there's a potential water supply benefit from that, let's do it. And so there's tremendous amount of interest from water agencies that have contacted us of want to be kept up to speed about the updates of the project to know what roadblocks we run into and how we

00;40;42;11 - 00;40;56;26
Speaker 2
mitigate them. I've received and had actually a call with an irrigation district in New Zealand who's very interested and saw this in the paper and wanted to know and be kept up to speed over the coming years of this.

00;40;56;26 - 00;41;18;11
Speaker 2
They're interested in this. And I think on on the highest level, this type of project makes sense and there's just a general support and well-wishes that this goes forward. And, you know, people see this as an opportunity to address some of the water and energy needs that we have moving forward.

00;41;19;17 - 00;41;35;02
Speaker 1
This project has generated a lot of attention. I know you have been busy fielding interviews with a number of different media outlets far and wide. It is so cool that this is happening right here in the TID service area and that the community has the chance to watch the project play out locally.

00;41;35;16 - 00;41;42;02
Speaker 1
We're making history in Ceres. Where can people go to find out more about Project Nexus?

00;41;42;10 - 00;41;58;17
Speaker 2
So we obviously have all of our social media channels that are pushing out information about this project constantly and will share updates. But really, the one stop hub is TID.org/ProjectNexus at that site. Right now we have fact sheets and fake news, the press release.

00;41;58;17 - 00;42;15;15
Speaker 2
We have renderings of what this project might look like. And as we get further along, we'll have the designs up there, we'll have actual construction photos and videos. And so that will be the spot that we provide updates to not only our community, but really the world who's interested in this project.

00;42;15;22 - 00;42;23;19
Speaker 1
Absolutely. All right. And wrapping up, is there anything else that anything that we missed or anything else to to add?

00;42;24;08 - 00;42;47;15
Speaker 2
No, I think that this project builds on so many of the other topics that this podcast has covered about innovation and new technologies and areas that TID is investing in. And really, we're excited that this project is able to benefit both sides of our customers, and we're excited that the board supports this concept and wants us to

00;42;47;15 - 00;43;02;10
Speaker 2
continue to be pushing through to new technologies and to try out new ways of doing what we have done so successfully for 135 years. And so I think this project is is exciting. It's going to be a multi-year.

00;43;02;24 - 00;43;19;10
Speaker 2
There'll be updates along the way. I know that we'll be doing additional podcasts in the fall to really go into the details of this project, because right now it's is very conceptual, but when we break ground, we're going to have detailed plans and different components.

00;43;19;10 - 00;43;31;13
Speaker 2
We're going to know how we're going to span these canals, we're going to know how we're going to clean, and we're going to know where we're mounting the energy storage components. And so we're excited to provide that greater level of detail this fall.

00;43;31;22 - 00;43;45;00
Speaker 1
Excellent. And I do hope our listeners will come back to geek out on that side of the project as well. Well, Josh, I know Project Nexus has been keeping you busy. We appreciate you taking the time to to be here to talk more with us about the project.

00;43;45;09 - 00;43;46;10
Speaker 2
Thanks for having me. It was fun.

00;43;47;26 - 00;44;04;23
Speaker 1
Thank you for tuning in to the TID Water and Power podcast. You can find us on Facebook at Facebook.com/TurlockID on Instagram and Twitter at TurlockID and on LinkedIn as the Turlock Irrigation District. I'm your host, Constance Anderson.

00;44;05;01 - 00;44;06;06
Speaker 1
We'll see you again next time.