Sip some Napa and Sonoma Valley wine at the tasting room, take your glass to the overlook and gaze out at the pond full of, um, photovoltaics? Two wineries--Far Niente and Gundlach Bundschu--have what SPG Solar calls “floatovoltaics.” This works for the wineries, according to SPG vice president of strategic marketing Jennifer Monteleone, because the real estate prices in wine country are so high that the only inexpensive land is not land at all, but existing irrigation ponds. SPG straps commercially available solar panels on pontoons, runs an underwater cable to an inverter, then attaches it all to the grid. Usually the wineries use up the power, but they are on a net meter, she added. The two existing sites provide between 100 and 300 kW. The company is launching a second generation of floato’s that Monteleone contends are competitive with rooftop solar--at $4-$5 million/MW. Those, she said, won’t be aimed at places where the real estate is quite so prime, but at fish hatcheries and water agencies. Because the layer of solar panels keeps reservoirs cooler and decreases evaporation, not as much water has to be pumped into the existing winery ponds. Both water and energy are saved in the process--about 12 acre-feet/year, she added. The installations are said to be duck-friendly. “Ducks can be around it,” Monteleone said. A duck spokesbeak could not be reached for waterfowl association caw-ment. One drawback is that because flotovoltaics are water-borne, cleaning the pontoons and the panels is not a terrestrial event. “You have to take a boat to the solar system,” said Monteleone.
