水上太阳能走红

Joe Seaman-Graves is the city planner for the small town of Cohoes, New York. He was in search of a less costly way of providing electricity to the town. There was no extra land to build on. But Cohoes does have a nearly 6-hectare water reservoir.
乔·希曼-格雷夫斯是纽约州科霍斯小镇的城市规划师。他正在寻找一种低成本的方式为该镇供电。当地没有多余的土地可供建设。但是科霍斯确实有个面积近6公顷的水库。

Seaman-Graves looked up the term "floating solar" on Google. He was not familiar with the technology, which has long been a popular way to produce clean energy in Asia.
希曼-格雷夫斯在谷歌上查找了“水上太阳能”这个关键词。他不熟悉这项技术，该技术长期以来一直是亚洲生产清洁能源的一种流行方式。

Seaman-Graves learned that the town's water reservoir could hold enough solar panels to power all city buildings. And that would save the city more than $500,000 each year.
希曼-格雷夫斯了解到，该镇的水库可以容纳足够的太阳能板为所有城市建筑供电。这将为这座城市每年节省下50多万美元。

Floating solar panel projects have seen quick growth as a new form of clean energy in the United States and Asia. Floating solar panes are sought after not just for their clean power, but also because they save water by preventing evaporation.
水上太阳能板项目作为一种清洁能源形式在美国和亚洲迅速发展。水上太阳能板之所以受欢迎，不仅仅是因为它们能生产清洁电力，还因为它们可以通过防止蒸发来节约水资源。

A recent study that appeared in Nature Sustainability found that more than 6,000 cities in 124 countries could produce all of their electricity demand using floating solar. It also found that the panels could save the cities enough water each year to fill 40 million Olympic-sized swimming pools.
最近发表在《自然·可持续发展》杂志上的一项研究发现，在124个国家的6000多座城市可以使用水上太阳能来满足所有电力需求。研究还发现，这些太阳能板每年为城市节省下的水足以填满4000个奥运规格的泳池。

Zhenzhong Zeng is a professor at the Southern University of Science and Technology in Shenzhen, China. He worked on the study. He said American states like Florida, Nevada and California could produce more power with floating solar than they need.
曾振中是中国深圳南方科技大学的教授。他致力于这项研究。他说，美国像佛罗里达州、内华达州和加利福尼亚州等州可以使用水上太阳能生产出更多电力。

The idea of floating solar is simple: attach panels on structures that float on water. The panels serve as a cover that reduces evaporation to nearly zero. The water keeps the panels cool. This permits them to produce more electricity than land-based panels, which lose efficiency when they get too hot.
水上太阳能的想法很简单：在水面漂浮结构上安装太阳能电池板。这些太阳能板可以作为一个盖子，将水蒸发量减少到几乎为零。水使太阳能板保持凉爽。这使得它们能比陆地太阳能板产生更多的电力，而陆地太阳能板在过热时会效率低下。

One of the floating solar farms in the U.S. is the 4.8-megawatt project in Healdsburg, California. It was built by Ciel & Terre. The company has built 270 projects in 30 countries.
加利福尼亚州希尔兹堡的480万瓦项目是美国的漂浮太阳能发电场之一。它是由Ciel&Terre公司建造的。该公司在30个国家建设了270个项目。

Higher costs at first
前期成本较高

Chris Bartle of Ciel & Terre estimated that floating solar costs 10 to 15 percent more than land solar at first. But the technology saves money long term.
Ciel&Terre公司的克里斯·巴特尔估计，水上太阳能的前期成本比陆地太阳能高出10%至15%。但从长远来看，这项技术可以节省资金。

Deeper water can increase setup costs, and the technology cannot operate on fast-moving water, on the open ocean or on coastlines with very large waves.
深水会增加安装成本，而且该技术无法在急流、公海或浪大的海岸线运营。

Problems can come up if the solar panels cover too much of a water body's surface. That could change the water temperature and harm underwater life. Researchers are looking into whether the electromagnetic fields from floating panels could affect underwater ecosystems. However, there is no evidence of that yet.
如果太阳能电池板覆盖水体表面的面积过大，就会出现问题。这可能会改变水温并危害水下生物。研究人员正在研究水上太阳能产生的电磁场是否会影响水下生态系统。然而，目前还没有证据表明这一点。

In Cohoes, public officials are preparing for the setup of their project later this year. The project will cost an estimated $6.5 million.
科霍斯政府官员正在为今年晚些时候的项目安装做准备。该项目预计耗资650万美元。

Seaman-Graves said he believes his town's floating solar project can serve as an example for other American cities.
希曼-格雷夫斯表示，他相信当地的水上太阳能项目可以为其它美国城市树立榜样。

"We are an environmental justice community and we see a big opportunity for low to moderate income cities to replicate what we're doing," he said.
他说：“我们是一个环境正义社区，我们看到了中低收入城市复制我们正在做的事情的巨大机会。”