Agrivoltaics Is a Win-Win for Clean Energy and Sustainable Agriculture

Combining agriculture and solar panels can bring new revenues to small farmers, save water, increase soil health, and help pollinators.

 
Welcome to Jack’s Solar Garden, a Colorado farm pioneering agrivoltaics—a system that involves growing food crops under solar panels.

Over the past year, this 24-acre family farm in Boulder County has been producing clean energy through 3,276 solar panels that generate enough electricity to power around 300 homes, all while growing sustainable crops. It also hosts several research projects into the synergies that are established when solar energy and food production are combined, making it the largest commercially active agrivoltaics research facility in the U.S.

The logic behind agrivoltaics is that growing crops in some of the around 2 million acres of land that would be covered by solar panels in the U.S. by 2030 could have many benefits for soil health, water management, and the local insect population.

Through a project called InSPIRE, the Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NERL) is studying agrivoltaics at approximately 20 sites across the U.S.

Agrivoltaic systems are simple. Panels are installed at a higher level to allow for plants to grow underneath. The topsoil is left undisturbed and a diversity of crops is planted.

Agrivoltaics is not suitable for large-scale farmers that need heavy machinery to cultivate their land, but for small-scale growers, the benefits are wide-ranging. Native plants attract pollinators, such as bees, that can help improve crop yields, while their roots help keep the soil moist at times of drought, and prevent water runoff that could potentially contribute to climate change-induced flooding.

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Πηγή: treehugger.com