Mountain Regional Water and its solar partners cut the ribbon on Utah’s first floating solar array; the 1,078 solar panels are floating on top of a small reservoir inside Park City’s Promontory neighborhood.

The 589.7-kilowatt project will provide renewable energy to the Signal Hill Water Treatment Plant, which provides drinking water to the Snyderville Basin. The energy from the newly completed solar array will offset 92% of the facility’s grid energy consumption.

Mountain Regional Water General Manager Andy Garland said the project began seven years ago when his team began looking for ways to reduce costs.

“One of our biggest expenses is energy,” he said. “And this is something that Doug Evans in our office heard about that was done in Colorado, and so we went and figured out if this was something that we could do here.”

Mountain Regional Water then partnered with renewable energy developer Ameresco and floating solar developer D3Energy to plan the project.

Managing director of D3Energy Stetson Tchividjian said one of the main benefits of putting solar panels on water is it saves land.

“Solar in general needs a lot of space, and so when you look at an area like Utah and specifically Park City, that land is very precious, whether it’s used for recreation or just to be in its natural state,” he said. 

Putting the solar array on water also comes with other benefits.

“The hotter solar panel gets, the less efficient it gets, the less power it produces,” Tchividjian said. “Because our panels are roughly a foot or two off of the water, that cooling effect of the water and the wind coming off the water keep those panels substantially cooler and in turn, keep them more efficient and produce more power.”

Floating solar panels also reduce unwanted algae blooms and reduce evaporation.

Garland said the whole project cost about $1.8 million. A $400,000 Rocky Mountain Blue Sky grant helped fund the project and Garland said the organization also hopes to receive 30% to 40% of the project’s total from Infrastructure Reduction Act grants.