By Lindsay Mouw, Center for Rural Affairs What’s the latest buzz about solar energy? It’s likely the thousands of honey bees that call solar fields home. Commonly referred to as “agrisolar beekeeping,” the practice of placing beehives on or near solar fields is a burgeoning industry. While photovoltaic panels are generating energy from the sun, […]
By Rob Davis, Connexus Energy Seven years after designing our first solar array, more than 20 million deep-rooted and pollinator-friendly plants across more than 150 acres are helping us control costs while maximizing local benefits for our community, resulting in national recognition and hometown goodwill — but it almost didn’t happen. Now, our standard practice […]
Solar siting is advancing rapidly in New York to meet the state’s climate goals of 70% renewable energy by 2030 and 100% clean energy by 2040, and much of that development is targeted towards farmland. However, with the right policies, incentives and research, solar development can avoid or minimize the most serious negative impacts on […]
The vulnerabilities of food, energy and water systems to projected climatic change make building resilience in renewable energy and food production a fundamental challenge. Researchers investigate a novel approach to solve this problem by creating a hybrid of collocated agriculture and solar photovoltaic (PV) infrastructure. They took an integrative approach—monitoring microclimatic conditions, PV panel temperature, soil moisture and irrigation water use, plant ecophysiological function and plant biomass production within this ‘agrivoltaics’ ecosystem and in traditional PV installations and agricultural settings to quantify trade-offs. They found that shading by the PV panels provides multiple additive and synergistic benefits, including reduced plant drought stress, greater food production and reduced PV panel heat stress. This study represents the first experimental and empirical examination of the potential for an agrivoltaic system to positively impact each component of the food–energy–water nexus. The results from a dryland system indicate a reduction in daytime temperatures of the solar panels (energy) and microclimate under the panels (food), and a dampening in the diurnal fluctuations of each and day-to-day fluctuations in soil moisture in irrigated agriculture (water). Together, our findings suggest that a dryland agrivoltaic system may be a resilient energy and food system that has reduced vulnerabilities to future climate variability. However, there are probable barriers to wider adoption, which include challenges associated with some forms of mechanized farming and harvest and the additional costs associated with elevating PV arrays to allow for food production in the understorey. An integrated approach to the physical and social dimensions of our food and energy systems is key in supporting decision making regarding PV development and sustainable food and energy production in a changing world
This study was conducted to compare lamb growth and pasture production under solar panels and in open pastures in Corvallis, Oregon in spring 2019 and 2020. Results of the study dynamics of variations of shaded areas for rabbit habitat, seasonal herbage and forage production. These results can be useful in developing agrisolar operations that include rabbits.
This study was conducted to compare lamb growth and pasture production from solar pastures in agrivoltaic systems and traditional open pastures over 2 years in Oregon. The discussion dives into a variety of topics, including: reduction of pasture production due to trampling, production in fully shaded areas, herbage variation and its effect on lamb production and lamb behavior relating to water intake and shade usage. These considerations could be helpful for agrisolar development when lambs will be used for grazing, etc.
This paper examines the current scope of sheep grazing in New York State and the benefits, opportunities, challenges, and barriers to scaling up the sheep industry to graze ground-mounted photovoltaic arrays for vegetation management.
This workshop was held on Monday, January 10, 2022 and was hosted by the USDA-DOE Solar Energy Technologies Office (SETO). The presenters included Garrett Nilsen and Michele Boyd from the DOE-SETO Office, William Hohenstein from the USDA Office of Energy and Environmental Policy, Jordan Macnick from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Greg Barron-Gafford from […]
This report explores the synergies between farming and solar photovoltaics with the premises that agricultural production on farmland should be maintained and farm profitability and soil health should be improved.
Written By: Cody Smith As communities across the nation continue to embrace a future powered by clean energy, new solar farms are offering an opportunity to pair economic development and conservation goals. As landowners, project developers, and local officials work to enhance the value of these new project sites for the communities hosting them, investments […]
