Tag Archive for: Agrivoltaics

DOE Announces Initiatives to Increase Community Solar Deployment

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) made announcements during the National Solar Partnership Summit (NCSP) addressing new initiatives that will unlock barriers related to the deployment of community solar. These initiatives will assist the NCSP in reaching one of their goals of creating $1 billion in energy savings by 2025. Another goal by the NCSP is to “enable community solar to power the equivalent of 5 million households,” according to a recent report by DOE.

Supercomputer to be Used on USDA-Backed Agrivoltaics Project

An agrivoltaic project at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) is being funded at $10 million by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) over the next four years. Researchers will study agrivoltaic operations in three states: Arizona, Colorado and Illinois. The study aims to address the tension between crop yields and energy production that arises when the two compete for the same land resources. Read more about the project here.

Solar Parks Could Boost Ground-Nesting Bumble Bee Populations

A recent study on solar park management methods in the UK shows that solar parks managed as meadows instead of turf grass are highly beneficial for populations of ground-nesting bumble bees. Solar management scenarios were studied by researchers at Lancaster University and found that solar parks managed as meadows offer the most resources to bumble bees, allowing four times the population capacity as solar parks managed as turf grass. To learn more about the research, click here.

This white paper provides an overview of these state efforts and offers suggestions for what other states can do to promote solar while also creating or preserving healthy habitats for pollinators.

The Nature Conservancy and Defenders of Wildlife created the Long Island Solar Roadmap (the Roadmap) with the aim of advancing deployment of mid- to-large-scale solar power on Long Island in a way that minimizes environmental impacts, maximizes benefits to the region, and expands access to solar energy, including access to benefits by underserved communities.

This toolkit is intended for state and municipal lawmakers, farmers, and researchers hoping to improve or better understand their community’s farmland solar policies. It identifies key areas of state law affecting how much and what kind of solar development occurs on farmland, as well as farmers’ access to clean energy.

This toolkit is intended for state and municipal lawmakers, farmers, and researchers hoping to improve or better understand their community’s farmland solar policies. It identifies key areas of state law affecting how much and what kind of solar development occurs on farmland, as well as farmers’ access to clean energy.

This agreement template example, from the American Solar Grazing Association, Inc., is an example of a limited vegetation maintenance agreement between a solar site manager and a sheep farmer. The example includes terms of the agreement between parties and details regarding obligations under various circumstances for the duration of the contract.

This agreement template example, from the American Solar Grazing Association, Inc., is an example of a comprehensive vegetation maintenance agreement between a solar site manager and a sheep farmer. The example includes instructions for using a contract template, terms of the agreement between parties and details regarding obligations under various circumstances for the duration of the contract.

This thesis lays the groundwork for the broader realization of agrivoltaics by identifying the socio-political opportunities and barriers to development. Combining theoretical frameworks on technology diffusion and social acceptance of renewable energy with expert perspectives, this work seeks to understand, address, and accommodate the role of society and policy in combining solar energy and food systems. Three empirical studies are presented that first investigate the impediments to farmer adoption of the technology, then explore the challenges to development from the perspective of solar industry professionals, and conclude by outlining a comprehensive legal framework for agrivoltaics in the U.S. The findings identify the key socio-political opportunities for agrivoltaics include: the retention of agricultural land and rural interests, and increased local level acceptance of solar development. The key barriers include: ensuring long term agricultural productivity is not compromised, and subnational localized zoning strategies.

The recent rapid promotion of renewable energy technology (RET) worldwide may have led to a greater social impact on local communities, where multiple otherwise-small individual units of RET are concentrated in one place, as may occur in the case of small photovoltaic power generating units, for example. This study examines such a case of the dissemination of innovative agrivoltaic systems (AVSs), a system in which photovoltaic power facilities are installed above cultivated farmland, across Japanese rural areas.

Despite the mature and promising potential for solar photovoltaic (PV) technology to retrench global reliance on fossil fuels, large-scale PV development is experiencing complex challenges, including land use conflict and — as the scale of solar has increased — social resistance, which has previously been more commonly associated with large-scale wind farms. Growth in large-scale PV development can create land use disputes, especially in instances of competition between land for agriculture versus energy production. This history and growing concern over land use highlights the challenge of meeting the soaring demands for solar power while conserving rural and agricultural lands. It is posited that the impact of solar development on land will be diminished by siting PV in a manner that is compatible with multiple uses, suggesting changes in conventional practices will be necessary. The specific intent of this study was to draw insight about solar development from participant experience, and responses indicate that the most considerable opportunities and barriers center on social acceptance and public perception issues. Perspectives about the opportunities and barriers to agrivoltaic development were captured via interviews with solar industry professionals, and inductive analysis revealed that interviewees were most focused on opportunities and barriers that correspond with Wüstenhagen et al.’s three dimensions of social acceptance: market, community, and socio-political factors. The social acceptance of renewable energy is shaped by a complex interplay among market, community, and socio-political factors. While this framework is constructive for understanding the varying dimensions of social acceptance, Devine-Wright et al. assert that it is weak in terms of the relationships between dimensions, suggesting that further research should apply a holistic approach for discerning the interdependence among factors shaping social acceptance of renewable energy. The purpose of this study is therefore to explore the perceptions of industry professionals in the U.S. and consider the implications of the identified opportunities and barriers from a social science perspective. To address global demands for both food and energy, the relationship between critical land uses must become complementary rather than competitive. Because social acceptance of renewable energy technology is pivotal to energy transitions, this study reflects a proactive attempt to understand agrivoltaics from a solar industry professional’s perspective to better understand the significant opportunities and barriers to development. This research suggests that agrivoltaics are potentially accretive to the long-term growth of the solar industry, possessing the capacity to increase social acceptance of local solar developments. While the agrivoltaic concept is widely supported by the participants in this study, popularity of an emerging technology among industry experts may not indicate local level acceptance of a specific development. As new energy technologies such as agrivoltaics transcend niche applications to become more prevalent, localized resistance is to be anticipated and the dimensions of social acceptance, including the opportunities and barriers associated with each dimension, can help inform decision making to enhance the growth of agrivoltaic development.