India is planning new large-scale installations of the technology on hydropower reservoirs and other water bodies in Tamil Nadu, Jharkhand and Uttarakhand states, and in the Lakshadweep islands. "The cost is coming almost to the same level as ground solar, and then it will go (forward) very fast," predicted Shailesh K. Mishra, director of power systems at the government Solar Energy Corporation of India. These panels - now in place from China to the Maldives to Britain - get around some of the biggest problems facing traditional solar farms, particularly a lack of available land, said Oliver Knight, a senior energy specialist with the World Bank. "If you covered 1 percent of manmade water bodies, you're already looking at 400 gigawatts," Knight said. "That's very significant."

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