Episode 83 - Exploring Floating Solar on Arkansas Farms

Ryan Loy is joined by Mike Popp to discuss his recent research on floating solar systems in Arkansas.  The discussion covers how these systems can generate electricity without taking farmland out of production, while also reducing water evaporation and potentially lowering maintenance costs. They also touch on ongoing research into feasibility, producer adoption, and willingness to pay. 

Check out the MCAM Newsletter (https://fryar-risk-center.uada.edu/category/publication-reports/podcast-newsletters/) for a link to the survey to share your opinion, open until May 15, 2026. 

Transcript

Dr. Ryan Loy 0:15

Good morning and welcome back to another episode of Morning Coffee in Ag Markets. My name is Ryan Loy, and with me today is Dr. Mike Popp. Dr. Popp is a farm management professor and Harold F. Ohlendorf chair in the Department of Agricultural Economics and Ag Business. Originally from Germany, he moved to Canada in 1983, later earning degrees in business, finance, and agricultural economics, and had a brief stint in industry before joining the University of Arkansas. He has been a part of the Arkansas faculty since 1996. Mike, it's a pleasure to have you in the studio. And today we're going to be talking about some research that Mike has been doing, really cool research on some uh non-traditional solar panels, maybe is a way to put it in terms of what you would typically think of. So I'd like to turn it over to Mike here to just kind of give a brief overview and talk about the folks involved.

Dr. Mike Popp 0:59

Ryan, thanks for the invitation to do this and really appreciate the opportunity to talk to you all about this. The innovative use of solar panels involves putting them on irrigation reservoirs in the Delta. And so we call it floating solar panels or floating photovoltaic systems. And we have about 30,000 acres worth of irrigation reservoirs in the Delta region of Arkansas, primarily to irrigate rice and soybeans, but also corn. And so why would we put solar panels inside the reservoirs to float on that water? Well, one, it doesn't use agricultural land. So you all have driven towards Memphis on I-40 and then on the north side, seeing a bunch of solar panels that used to be agricultural land. So as a farmer myself, that kind of goes against migraine, but I try not to be biased. And so that is one reason why we're looking at this. The solar panels in utility scale systems tend to be spaced apart because those solar panels throw shade. And so it takes about five plus acres per megawatt. Megawatt is one megawatt supplies enough electricity for about 180 homes. Oh wow. And so five point something acres, five point six, I think, to anywhere to eight point nine. So I think we use about six acres per megawatt for utility scale systems. When you put the solar panels on plastic buoys uh to float on water, you actually space them very close together. So it takes only about 2.5 acres roughly per megawatt. And you also tilt the solar panels at a fixed angle of six degrees facing south, but you could also have them facing east or west so that you get electricity output at different times of the day.

Dr. Ryan Loy 2:39

That's right.

Dr. Mike Popp 2:40

And so that's the electricity generating part. But then another big benefit of floating solar systems is that you reduce evaporation, natural evaporation that occurs on open water bodies. And season long, there are estimates out there for Arkansas that suggest that about 17 inches of water will evaporate over the growing season. And on a hot, dry year, that might be a little bit more. You know, there's weather dependence, location dependence, so on and so forth. But roughly, let's say, a foot and a half of a foot and a half of water. And when you put those solar panels on there and shade that water, you reduce some of that. You can save that 1.5 foot. And so what does that mean for producers? Well, they have an extra one and a half foot of water on a 40-acre reservoir, that amounts to quite a bit of water. And so that means you could either irrigate more ground with the same reservoir that you already have on your farm, or that you just have further reserves available to you end of season should you need them. And so the beauty of having water and irrigation reservoirs is that when you're putting the water on from the reservoir, you're not having to lift it out of the ground anymore. It is therefore available at pretty high rate, and that that allows you to put water on quickly.

Dr. Ryan Loy 3:56

It's really fascinating stuff. When you first told me about this project, I'd never I didn't even know what a photovoltec was, and and learning about what it is you were doing. And this is really just an interesting project. And as I understand it, you're working with some students in our department through this project. And if you'd like to take the chance to kind of talk about what they've been doing to help you put this together and give them kind of a spotlight for a moment.

Dr. Mike Popp 4:17

Yeah, so one of my honors undergrad students is Anna Claire Roberts, and uh she wants to do a survey on floating solar systems. And the intent is to find out from consumers, farmers, and the general public about what they would be willing to pay extra on electricity bills to not use agricultural land because the irrigation reservoirs are not they're not agricultural land. They are built on agricultural land when you don't grow crops on a water body other than fish. And so uh same goes for the embankments, and so on the levees you could put solar panels also on the south side, east, and west side to capture solar energy. And so she's doing a survey to find out whether people would pay extra on their electricity bills to not use agricultural land. And then by virtue of putting those solar panels into the reservoirs with 14-foot levees around them, you can't see the solar fields. Right. And so she wants to figure out what the willingness to pay is for not seeing the solar panels because you know some people don't like looking at solar panels. Right. And that is a judgment call. Now, the drawback of these solar panels on floating irrigation reservoirs is that they cost a little bit more. I'm not gonna say exactly how much because I don't want to give away how much we need to spend on the cost side to influence what what your willingness to pay is. So please go and fill out that survey so we have that information, and then we can compare that demand or willingness to pay against the cost to uh to to put that in in place, and then we need to figure out from there whether we need some kind of government intervention or whether this this could work.

Dr. Ryan Loy 5:48

Great. And to all our listeners, we will link that survey in the newsletter this week. And so please be sure to answer the survey if you have the time and if you're interested in it. And if you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to Mike and I'm sure he'd be happy to answer any that you may have.

Dr. Mike Popp 6:02

Yeah, it's a five or ten minute survey on your cell phone. Shouldn't shouldn't be a difficult thing. Another student that that has actually worked on the feasibility of this and did all the background work together with me is my public policy PhD student, his names, Travis Wager. And then later this summer, hopefully when the the demo facility is constructed at the Stuttgart Research Station, we'll be able to have farmers and utility companies and policy makers come out there and and look at the system to decide, yeah, wow, this this can actually work, or eh, I don't know. What about interaction with ducks is a big question that I always get in during the wildlife. And so um that's why we're starting with the demonstration facility, just to be basically see do those solar panels really also uh reduce the wave action in irrigation reservoirs, which would then reduce the amount of money you have to spend on rebuilding the levees or the embankments from the inside because the water when the wave action erodes those. Is there differences? Are there differences in algae production, which would potentially impact irrigation equipment maintenance costs? And so, yeah, that's that's all the stuff that we're working on. And Ryland Schmidt is another honors undergraduate student that actually wants to do a focus group session with some farmers and utilities and and bring people around the table and say, well, now that you've seen this this solar field in action, what are the barriers or what are the constraints that we need to address to to make people think about, well, let's have solar panels on irrigation reservoirs where we're not using agricultural land.

Dr. Ryan Loy 7:31

Oh, that's great. That really is great. And uh it's it's such interesting research. And and again, when you think about you mentioned that solar field on the way to Memphis off I-40. I mean, it's really staggering how big that field is. And I think there's real opportunity here for, like you said, you know, putting this onto the reservoirs to get it out of sight, kind of out of mind, but also benefit from the solar that's generated from it, the energy that's generated from it. So, you know, one of the biggest things from a farmer's perspective, and I think we've kind of touched on this, but just to kind of go down a little bit deeper, what are the, you know, biggest potential benefits or even cost, you know, uh both sides of it, uh, beyond just generating electricity for them?

Dr. Mike Popp 8:07

Well, I mentioned the wave action reduction, which would lower their maintenance costs. I also mentioned the evaporation savings so you have more water available, algae, potentially, wildlife interaction. We're not sure whether ducks are really gonna go ahead and potentially really like solar panels and go and nest in there, and then we have to clean them. And how easy is it to clean them? How often do you have to clean them? Those are all questions that we hope to address with this demonstration.

Dr. Ryan Loy 8:32

That's great. And you mentioned the demonstration. Can you go a little bit in depth on how you're planning to put that together? And it's down at the Stuttgart station, correct?

Dr. Mike Popp 8:39

It will be at the Stuttgart Research Center, Rice Rice Research Center. And we're using it in one of the 40-acre irrigation reservoirs on site there with my collaborator Chris Henry, who's our water irrigation specialist for U of A Division of Agriculture. And so we're excited to hopefully construct the system. We're doing a small one, uh, 96 panels, 600 watt panels. So that's gonna kick out roughly 55 kilowatt. And then we're doing some embankment panels too to see what the impact on vegetation underneath the solar panels would be on the embankments and whether there would be outside bank erosion down the road if you have solar panels on there, whether to slope them. That's another honor undergraduate student's work to look at whether they should be tilting or sun tracking panels or whether they should be fixed panels and you know what happens to the vegetation underneath the panels. Do the weeds grow up through there and then you have to manage that and becomes a headache, or can you completely shade that out and save you the headache of of dealing with vegetation on the embankments? So these are all research questions that we want to address in terms of both physical feasibility and then also the economics.

Dr. Ryan Loy 9:45

That's great. So this is gonna be at the Stuttgart station, you're putting it together on a 40-acre reservoir. How much of that are you going to put into solar panels? And I guess here's another way to ask it. If I had a 40-acre reservoir on my land, would you say, as you think now, to fill it as much as you can with the solar panels, or is there an optimal design for how you put it together into that reservoir?

Dr. Mike Popp 10:06

Well, there's been research that's been done in Spain and and also in California where these these kinds of systems are or more commonplace, also in Florida and the Northeast. So uh not to want to leave anyone out, but you really start impacting the water quality and habitat if you cover the water bodies more than 25%. These irrigation reservoirs are not for recreational use, they're for storing water. And so uh the concerns about wildlife habitat are probably less in my mind, and probably in also the farmer's mind. In our paper that that Travis Wager put together, we looked at the electricity generating potential across different levels of water surface coverage. Okay. And at 25% to 50% coverage, so 10 acres versus 20 acres, we're getting to, you know, the two and a half acres per megawatt. We're getting into that five megawatt to ten megawatt system size that tends to compete quite well in terms of economics with larger scale land-based solar systems. Would you cover everything? There's an outfit that I talked to from the Netherlands, and they said that they have irrigation reservoirs that they cover completely.

Dr. Ryan Loy 11:15

Interesting.

Dr. Mike Popp 11:16

Including the levees. Every square inch is covered. Covered. And I'm thinking, I don't think I really want to do that because when you think about eventually having to replace the panels or the the buoy system and uh, you know, having to maintain the levees, I I want the floating system which you have to anchor. I want to be able to move it around in the in the reservoir so that it doesn't become a nuisance. And so full coverage in my mind is is probably not the way to go, but that's up to the farmer and it's up to the companies that potentially would be interested investing. And I'm thinking those that would be interested in investing in in those kinds of facilities might be utilities or local governments that say, well, we want to have some renewable energy and we don't want to use up agricultural land.

Dr. Ryan Loy 12:03

Absolutely. That makes that makes total sense. And one of the things I was thinking of while you were talking about it is, you know, does does this system look more realistic for a large operation as it sits now, or can it be applied to um as long as you have a reservoir no matter the size, you know, of course, within reason, would this be applicable across farm sizes and operation types and things, uh, things of that sort?

Dr. Mike Popp 12:25

Well, as with anything, there are economies of size. So the larger the system, the cheaper it is to install it and to run it. And so I would say that five to ten megawatt range with a consequential land footprint or water surface footprint times 2.5 acres gives you sort of the idea about how much surface area you need for your for your reservoir.

Dr. Ryan Loy 12:44

Okay.

Dr. Mike Popp 12:45

And so the average size of the man-made irrigation reservoirs in the state is right around 40 acres, and that's why our study loses 40 acres to 40 acres. And so, yeah, that's that's where that comes from.

Dr. Ryan Loy 12:57

That makes sense. One of the other things you had mentioned, well, kind of a two-part question. One, is there any adoption of this currently on farm in Arkansas that you know of? And secondly, from a policy standpoint, just in based on your research and what you can see, what kind of support or incentives would you believe uh, in your opinion, would matter most if Arkansas wanted to start increasing the adoption rates of this across the board?

Dr. Mike Popp 13:19

Well, I think that goes back to trying to figure out from this audience what your willingness to pay is for not using agricultural land and and hiding panels out of sight, and then comparing that to the cost. And then, you know, building a fund through electricity bill contributions that says, okay, we have a cost differential, I want to do this on my farm, or the utility company wants to do it on somebody's farm. The farmer is willing to do it because they think wave action is gonna be reduced. They want the irrigation reservoir, water evaporation savings from the floating solar, and then go from there. So build the fund and then have someone administer innovative ways of installing those systems where they make the most sense.

Dr. Ryan Loy 14:00

Well, that's great. Well, Mike, as we wrap it up, is there anything else that you'd like to touch on for this that you think would be of interest to our listeners? And if you'd like to just take a moment to kind of remind us about the survey, how listeners can participate in those sorts of things.

Dr. Mike Popp 14:13

Again, we're gonna send out through your newsletter a link. Uh if you want to share the link with uh with other farmers that potentially are not on the newsletter list, the more answers we get from farmers, but also from the general public about their willingness to pay for for those kinds of systems would be very much appreciated. Uh the more responses we get that are relevant to the region, the better the survey results are going to be.

Dr. Ryan Loy 14:38

Great. And and you did mention this just a moment ago, a region. So if somebody's outside of Arkansas, will those answers also help motivate this as well?

Dr. Mike Popp 14:46

I would think so. Okay. Um ideally, you would be from country where uh irrigation reservoirs are being used. Okay. Because if we're asking the general public to pitch in for this effort, then we need those that are on farm and those that are not on farm to give us answers about what their willingness to pay is. Gotcha.

Dr. Ryan Loy 15:03

Absolutely. Well, Mike, I really appreciate you joining me today. I've learned a lot and I know our listeners will as well. Just a reminder, again, uh, we will link this survey in the newsletter this week, and we might keep it on for a few weeks just to make sure that folks can see it. And again, there'll be a QR code for you to scan, and it'll take you right there. It should take you about five to ten minutes, and it would really help out Dr. Pop and his students help motivate and and look at this research to try to, you know, see what the feasibility is. So just wanted to thank you. And if there's any last thoughts, I'll give you the floor. If not, then we will wrap this up.

Dr. Mike Popp 15:33

Yeah, I mean, the only other thing I'm gonna say is there's increasing demand for electricity all over the place, and it needs to come from somewhere. Right. And we need to figure out ways to make it come from the least cost, least cost source. That's right. And that's what we're working on.

Dr. Ryan Loy 15:48

That's great. Well, Mike, thank you so much, and uh look forward to having you on again soon, hopefully, and talk about some of the other cool research you're doing. Well, that is it for this week's episode of Morning Coffee and Ag Markets. Stay tuned for the market report. Bye bye now. Hello everyone, this is Ryan, and I'm here with your market report. May 2026 corn is currently pricing in at $4.44 a bushel. That is down two percent from a month ago and down eight percent from a year ago. December 2026 corn is currently pricing in at $4.74, that's down two percent from a month ago, and up four percent from a year ago. May 2026 rice is currently pricing in at $10.91 per hundredweight, that's down four percent from a month ago, and down eighteen percent from a year ago. September twenty twenty-six rice is currently pricing in at eleven dollars and fifty-nine cents per hundredweight, that's down three percent from a month ago, and down fourteen percent from a year ago. May 2026 soybeans are currently pricing in at $11.65 per bushel. That's down three percent from a month ago, but up thirteen percent from a year ago. November 2026 uh soybeans are currently pricing in at $11.53 per bushel. That's up 0.4% from a month ago, and up 15% from a year ago. May 2026 cotton is currently pricing in at 73 cents per pound, that is up 13% from a month ago, and up 10% from a year ago. December 2026 cotton is currently pricing in at 77 cents per pound. That is up 11% uh from a month ago and up 13% from a year ago. July 2026 wheat is currently priced in at $5.85 per bushel. That is down five percent from a month ago and up six percent from a year ago. Peanuts, U.S. weekly average, are currently coming in at $434 a ton. That's down 10% from a month ago and down 17% from a year ago. The Mississippi River at Memphis is currently reading at 14.72 feet, and a year ago it was at 31 feet. Arkansas Highway diesels currently pricing in at $5.20 a gallon. A month ago that was four dollars and twenty-one cents a gallon, and a year ago, three dollars and thirty cents a gallon. Arkansas Farm diesels currently pricing in at four dollars and eighteen cents per gallon. A month ago that was three dollars and seventy-nine cents a gallon, and a year ago, two dollars and twenty-five cents a gallon, so we're up almost two dollars on a year. Weekly fertilizer prices as of April 9th, 2026. Urea is currently pricing in $829 a ton. A month ago that was $747 a ton. Three months ago, $512 a ton, and a year ago, $563 a ton. Ammonium nitrates currently priced in at $579 a ton. A month ago that was five hundred and twenty-two dollars a ton, and three months ago four hundred and sixty-five dollars a ton. A year ago, four hundred and eighteen dollars a ton. Ammonium sulfate's currently pricing in at $518 a ton. A month ago that was five hundred and twenty-five dollars a ton. Three months ago, four hundred and forty-nine dollars a ton, and a year ago five hundred and thirty-five dollars a ton. DAP is currently priced in at $827 a ton. A month ago that was $797 a ton. Three months ago $792 a ton. And a year ago, $756 a ton. Triple Superphosphate is currently priced in at $725 a ton. A month ago that was $700 a ton. Three months ago $728 a ton. And a year ago, $615 a ton. Potash is currently pricing in at $440 a ton. A month ago that was $454 a ton. Three months ago, $456 a ton. And a year ago, $465 a ton. Thank y'all so much for listening this week. Have a great day.

Dr. Hunter Biram 20:18

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