Energy and water co-benefits from covering canals with solar panels

In the manuscript entitled, "Energy and water co-benefits from
covering canals with solar panels", we quantified the evaporation
savings and financial performance of over-canal solar in comparison to
over-ground solar on land adjacent to canals, using regional-scale
hydrologic and cost simulations. We conducted regional hydrologic
and techno-economic simulations of solar PV panels covering California’s
6350 km canal network. We examined the net effect on the
financial performance of three different solar PV structures at
eight different sites along the California network of canals. The three
solar PV structures included a ground-mounted system, a steel-truss
canal-spanning design that has been deployed in Gujarat, India, and a
suspension-cable canal-spanning design that has been deployed in Punjab,
India. Our financial performance includes the net present value (NPV) and
the levelized costs of energy (LCOE) comparisons of over-canal to
ground-mounted designs considered enhanced PV performance due to
evaporative cooling, and avoided costs for water and aquatic weed
mitigation. Here, we provide the additional supporting
information (Appendices A, B, and C) and the data we used to
generate Figures 1, 3, and 4 in the main manuscript.