These bizarre floating solar panels are solving 3 critical problems

These bizarre-looking floating solar panels are the solution to quite a few little-known energy problems.

They can keep the water from evaporating, they can save fertile land for agriculture, and they can be more efficient since the water cools them.

On hydropower dams or reservoirs, it's especially important that the water doesn't evaporate so that we can use it for electricity and irrigation. This makes these locations particularly attractive for floating solar panels.

Mark Bennett, the owner of Sheeplands Farm in the UK, built floating solar panels on a three-acre reservoir that irrigates his farm.

"Why should we waste perfectly good grade one and grade two listed land when we have dead space on the water of the resorvoir?" he asks in a YouTube video. "Why should we waste that land?" 

And he says it only took a crew a week to build the solar array:

It's also easier to wash the panels, since you can just use the water they're floating on to rinse them off with a brush.

Similar projects are popping up all over the world.

Construction began in January on a 13.7 Megawatt floating solar system on the Yamakura Dam in Japan. That's enough to power almost 5,000 homes.

Brazil announced earlier this month that it will float thousands of solar panels on the Balbina Dam deep in the Amazon. That array will likely power about 500,000 homes, Fusion reports.

These solar panels look a little unconventional, but they're really a nifty innovation.