Conger Solar Systems says it is designing and engineering the solar panel canopies that will be used to cover various sections of Turlock Irrigation District’s canals for Project Nexus in California.
Conger’s structures were commissioned by Project Nexus managers Solar AquaGrid and the Turlock Irrigation District based on the firm’s successful solar-over-canal deployments in India.
Conger’s designs are well-suited for covering narrow and wide-span canals and the challenges posed by building over existing utility corridors while saving open land for other purposes in the process.
“After teaching an environmental design course with Buckminster Fuller at John Denver’s Windstar Foundation, I realized that the inherent efficiency of cable structures, combined with solar energy was an embodiment of Bucky’s core principles of sustainability, renewable energy, and doing more with less,” says Steven Conger, CTO/Chairman, Conger Solar Systems.
Once design concepts were patented, Conger Solar Systems designed and built its first tensioned cable solar structure over a parking lot in Los Angeles in 2011. Several projects followed, mainly in India, paving the way to the Punjab, India solar-over-canal project Conger Solar Systems designed in 2017.