Floating solar array installed on Ohio village reservoir

A village in Ohio just switched on the state's largest floating solar array, a 6 megawatt system built by D3Energy on Monroeville's drinking water reservoir. Instead of solar panels on land, the system uses floating platforms (made by Ciel & Terre) to hold the panels directly on the water's surface. This approach saves more than 30 acres of land that a standard ground-mounted array would need, and it also helps cut down water loss from evaporation and keeps algae growth in check.

The village will buy the power under a long-term agreement with project owner Gardner Capital, feeding it into Monroeville's local electric grid. The array is expected to generate over 7,500 megawatt-hours a year, enough to power around 700 homes, and it more than doubles the village's clean energy supply. This is D3Energy's third floating solar project in Ohio, following smaller systems in Delaware and Lima. Together, the three bring the state's total floating solar capacity to nearly 10 megawatts.

This is a municipal utility project, not something homeowners can sign up for directly, but it points to a growing trend: putting solar panels on reservoirs and other water bodies to avoid the land-use fights that often slow down new solar farms. Research cited in connection with the project suggests U.S. reservoirs could host enough floating solar to supply a large share of the power needed to clean up the nation's electric grid by 2050, so this kind of setup may become more common in other towns over time.