A 6 MW floating solar plant in Monroeville, Ohio

D3Energy has energised a 6 MW floating solar system on 12 acres of the Village of Monroeville's reservoir, in Ohio. It spans 9,222 modules across three islands feeding the village's distribution grid, the largest array of its kind in the state and among the five largest in the country.

D3Energy's release of 16 September 2026 carries the figure that explains the siting: on land the same system would have needed 30 acres of Huron County farmland, and roughly a third of Ohio's 88 counties have restricted utility-scale solar since a 2021 state law gave them that authority.

What stays open is the investor's exit. Gardner Capital owns the system and sells the power to the village under a long-term agreement. Once that agreement ends, the asset still sits on the buyer's reservoir, and the number of plausible buyers for the stake falls close to one.

That defines who should use the model. Ohio already has about 10 MW of floating solar, all of it on water the host utilities own. For a municipal utility with its own reservoir, this is the configuration where generation arrives without competing for farmland.