Philadelphia-based climate reporter Isabella O’Malley caught up with a new trend when she highlighted a study that showed a little-known form of solar power, floating solar panels, is starting to be taken seriously in the U.S. She reported that it takes up no land and can generate whole cities’ worth of electricity. Floating rafts with solar panels also conserve water by reducing evaporation. Video journalists Haven Daley and Laura Bargfeld contributed from Windsor, California, and Bartow, Florida. The story had 375 pickups, appearing in the Washington Post, Seattle Times, FoxNews.com, PBS Newshour, The Hill, MSN, Yahoo News, Salt Lake Tribune, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, San Francisco Chronicle, Toronto Globe and Mail, the Times of India and VOA among many others.
Long popular in Asia, floating solar catches on in US
The sun rises over floating solar panels on May 3, 2023, in Selangor, Malaysia. Floating solar panel farms are beginning to boom in the United States after rapid growth in Asia. They're attractive not just for their clean power and lack of a land footprint, but because they also conserve water by preventing evaporation.
AP Photo/Vincent Thian