Conger Products
Over Water. Over Land. Over Extremes.
Conger Solar Systems can be built above many types of existing infrastructure, allowing energy production to integrate with, rather than change, its environment and provide benefits above and beyond clean energy. Such benefits include large area temperature moderation, evaporation mitigation, enhanced land utilization, crop growth optimization, water use reduction, water quality improvement and temperature control, among others.
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Over Canals
Conger recently built solar systems over several miles of canals in India, completing the installation in just 10 weeks. Conger is working on similar projects in the US to help save billions of gallons of water lost through evaporation each year from the extensive canal systems throughout the Western US. In addition to minimizing water lost due to evaporation, Conger’s systems shade the canals denying algae the sun it needs to grow, saving canal owners and operators significant maintenance costs for algae abatement, thereby increasing water oxygen content which improves water quality.
Portion of a Conger solar system built over a canal in Punjab, India
Conger design of utility scale solar installed over a portion of a large, essential aqueduct in the arid Western US
Canal systems run thousands of miles throughout the Western US supplying water to residential, commercial and agricultural regions. Conger’s solar over canal product is a multi-benefit solution to drought stricken regions that:
- avoids taking crop land out of production
- reduces evaporation of water from canals
- reduces algae growth saving maintenance costs and improving water quality
- provides clean, renewable utility scale electric power
- reduces pumping costs through distributed power provided directly to canal pumps
- eliminates air pollution from old, soot spewing, diesel powered pumps by incentivizing replacing old pumps with clean electric powered pumps that run on free solar energy
- Avoids taking crop land out of production
- Reduces evaporation of water from canals
- Reduces algae growth saving maintenance costs and improving water quality
- Provides clean, renewable utility scale electric power
- Reduces pumping costs through distributed power provided directly to canal pumps
- Eliminates air pollution from old, soot spewing, diesel powered pumps by incentivizing replacing old pumps with clean electric powered pumps that run on free solar energy
Conger Solar Systems reduces over canal structure cost by reducing materials and construction time
A recent University of California study estimates placing solar over California’s 4,000 miles of canals will reduce evaporative water loss by as much as 63 billion gallons/year. Those same solar panels installed over California’s canals would also generate approximately 13GW of electricity each year, or about one sixth of the state’s installed capacity, according to the researchers. In drought prone areas of the world, Conger Solar Systems’ cost-effective over-canal technology provides numerous economic benefits, including:
- minimal site acquisition costs–governments already own the land & canals
- reduction of transmission costs to support canal pumping electrical demand
- significant cost savings vs. building desalination plants or new reservoirs
- Minimal site acquisition costs–governments already own the land & canals
- Reduction of transmission costs to support canal pumping electrical demand
- Significant cost savings vs. building desalination plants or new reservoirs
In competitive bidding, Conger’s over-canal system has been shown to be 40-50% less expensive than traditional rigid structures.
Conger Solar Systems’ over-canal structures are designed to span canals 20 feet to 450 feet wide, address any canal orientation (N-S to E-W), reside at any desired height above the water and easily cross canals with no intermediate columns (unless in-canal structures are requested like Conger’s projects in India). Conger Solar Systems has a virtually unlimited ability to adapt to canal requirements without sacrificing cost-efficiency.
Conger Solar Systems in-canal solar structure providing shade, Punjab, India (in canal foundations required by local gov’t agencies due to canal wall conditions).
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Over Parking
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In the US, it is estimated that there are more than 8 million acres of uncovered parking lots, representing more than 4,000 GW of undeveloped solar over parking capacity. To-date, less than 1% of the total solar over parking capacity has solar installed, primarily due to the high cost of traditional rigid structures that require 2x-3x more steel than a Conger system. Conger structures significantly drive down the cost of solar over parking, providing retailers, stadiums, universities, businesses and any parking lot owner the opportunity to make smart infrastructure investments with attractive ROI and payback periods.
Benefits of Conger Solar Systems’ Solar Parking Canopies:
- Utilizing parking lots avoids taking open land for solar development
- Real estate owners/lessees can turn parking cost centers into profit generating power plants
- Shade cools cars and reduces UV damage to parked cars
- Shaded parked cars use less energy to cool the car with air conditioning
- Provides an alternative to rooftop solar for old roofs
- Solar covered parking helps mitigate urban heat islands
- Innovative designs add to the aesthetics of surrounding architecture
- Reduces carbon footprint of businesses with parking lots
- Utilizing parking lots avoids taking open land for solar development
- Real estate owners/lessees can turn parking cost centers into profit generating power plants
- Shade cools cars and reduces UV damage to parked cars
- Shaded parked cars use less energy to cool the car with air conditioning
- Provides an alternative to rooftop solar for old roofs
- Solar covered parking helps mitigate urban heat islands
- Innovative designs add to the aesthetics of surrounding architecture
- Reduces carbon footprint of businesses with parking lots
Conger Solar Systems reduce solar carport weight
Typical rigid-design solar carports must employ costly concrete foundations and structural steel beams throughout the structure to meet building codes for high-wind, snow-load, and seismic requirements. Conger Solar Systems’ tensioned cable solar canopies eliminate 80% of the steel beams deployed in traditional structures, substantially reducing overall weight while achieving the strength required to support snow-load, seismic forces and exponential wind load.
Conger Solar Systems reduces carport cost by reducing materials and construction time
Conger’s parking system reduces cost by creating a structural backbone with tensioned cables, requiring fewer upright columns, steel beams and concrete foundations than a conventional carport. Less steel to assemble also means significantly less cost–less material and labor to install. Pre-assembly and pre-wiring of the lightweight, spaceframe pods that support the PV panels facilitate extremely rapid field installation (lift, place and attach).
Pods with panels attached are easily lifted in place and quickly fastened to the tensioned cable support structure
Conger single and double carport options.
Conger Solar Systems parking canopy under construction, Gujarat, India
Conger Solar Systems parking canopy, Los Angeles, CA
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Over Agriculture
One of the newest and most intriguing solar applications is installing solar over agriculture, also known as ‘agrivoltaics’. Researchers around the world are quickly concluding agrivoltaics provide multiple benefits, including:
- improved crop yields
- less water used to grow certain crops
- various livestock applications from grazing to shading feedlots
- can be placed over service roads for ag operations that don’t benefit from shade
- better working conditions for farm workers lowering total labor costs
- support for critical pollinators such as bees
- distributed electrical generation reduces water pumping costs, and
- increased profit margins through harvesting electricity from the sun–the new cash crop!
- Improved crop yields
- Less water used to grow certain crops
- Various livestock applications from grazing to shading feedlots
- Can be placed over service roads for ag operations that don’t benefit from shade
- Better working conditions for farm workers lowering total labor costs
- Support for critical pollinators such as bees
- Distributed electrical generation reduces water pumping costs, and
- Increased profit margins through harvesting electricity from the sun–the new cash crop!
Over-agriculture installations can be constructed at any height to allow unimpeded use of farm machinery. By incorporating light-diffusing shade cloth and/or light reflecting cloth, Conger systems can be optimized for specific crops and can be deployed on unfarmable, low utilization land.
Conger Solar Systems reduces agrivoltaics structure cost by reducing materials and construction time
Conger designs of tensioned cable solar structures incorporating shade cloth to optimize crop yield and moisture content
Arial rendering of tensioned cable solar structures with shade cloth
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Over Aquaculture
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Another innovative use of Conger’s all terrain solar technology is placing our solar tensile structures over aquaculture. Whether for human consumption or to be released into the wild, freshwater fish farms and hatcheries grow fish in narrow, long, rectangular, man-made ponds known as flow through raceways. The unique shape of flow through raceways keeps water moving to improve oxidation and minimize build-up of naturally occurring, oxygen depleting, biologically toxic waste. The raceways depend on costly pumps and electronic filters to keep the water optimized; installing solar over aquaculture not only provides electricity for the pumps, but the excess electrical output can be sold back into the grid at a profit. Shade from Conger Solar Systems also helps minimize oxygen depleting algae, lowers related maintenance costs, cools the water which benefits almost all freshwater species and minimizes evaporation and negative impacts of sun exposure to biological toxins.
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Over Tough Terrain
Conger systems are uniquely capable of going where traditional rigid structure systems can not. Our tough terrain ground-mount designs are intended to provide an economic solution for sites where grading and/or mounting system costs are high. In cases of sloped, undulating, uneven terrain such as hillsides, sloped agricultural grazing or crop lands such as vineyards, and even decommissioned landfill sites, Conger Solar Systems technology is uniquely able to follow terrain contours without requiring extensive, cost preventative earthwork. Depending on the nature of the site, a Conger solar system will have a significant beneficial impact on project economics and will turn underutilized land into profit centers.
While not necessarily sloped nor uneven, other ‘tough terrain’ applications include installing Conger systems over storage yards, industrial equipment, settling ponds or brownfield land in areas of valuable commercial/industrial real estate, allowing solar power to be installed in land-constrained areas typically closed to additional usage. Finally, Conger systems can also be economically installed over roadways, railways, bike trails and other corridors creating solar power gateways that transform power generation and transmission as well as provide shade to a rapidly warming planet.
Conceptual design of Conger Solar installation over rail yard
Conceptual design of Conger Solar installation over difficult terrain