Tag Archive for: agrivoltaic

The microclimate created underneath the solar panels conserves the water and protects plants from excess sun, wind, hail and soil erosion.

How shading crops with solar panels can improve farming, lower food costs and reduce emissions

If you have lived in a home with a trampoline in the backyard, you may have observed the unreasonably tall grass growing under it. This is because many crops, including these grasses, actually grow better when protected from the sun, to an extent.

And while the grass under your trampoline grows by itself, researchers in the field of solar photovoltaic technology — made up of solar cells that convert sunlight directly into electricity — have been working on shading large crop lands with solar panels — on purpose.

This practice of growing crops in the protected shadows of solar panels is called agrivoltaic farming. And it is happening right here in Canada.

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Source: The Conversation

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As global temperatures rise, the panels can help to conserve dwindling freshwater supplies by reducing evaporation from both plants and soil.

Agrivoltaic solar farms offer “shocking” benefits beyond producing energy

Next-gen solar parks that enable energy and food production as well as water conservation to work in synergy on the same plot can help to solve solar’s growing land-use issue, according to the researchers making them a reality.

“There is this big debate around using land for solar versus using it for agriculture,” said Colorado State University researcher Jennifer Bousselot. “And I just roll my eyes because you don’t have to pick. They can be combined.”

“This will be absolutely vital to the future of the energy industry,” added Richard Randle-Boggis from the University of Sheffield. “Especially somewhere like the UK, where sustainable land use is a critical challenge.”

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Source: dezeen

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The partial shade offered by solar panels creates a microclimate that reduces evaporation and significantly boosts the production of vegetation in arid climates.

Solar panels keeping sheep fed during drought

Two agrivoltaic installations in New South Wales, Australia are being credited with increasing the quantity and quality of fleece in sheep grazing at the facilities during a drought. Research has indicated that the partial shade offered by solar panels creates a microclimate that reduces evaporation and significantly boosts the production of vegetation in arid climates.

While these results are preliminary and anecdotal (and perhaps a tall tale from a fleece salesman down under), they offer potentially exciting field results that could be applied globally.

Graeme Ostini, a wool broker, says he’s been grazing his merino wethers (a variety of sheep) at a solar farm where sheep can graze under the modules. Ostini and other grazers say that over the past few years, these sheep have been ‘cutting an amazing amount of wool’.

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Source: PV Magazine

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Sheep and solar panels: using solar sites for pastureland

A solar power boom generated by new renewable energy mandates is unfurling in the Chesapeake Bay region. Virginia, for example, was ninth in the nation for new solar capacity in 2021.

With many solar arrays ending up on farmland, a movement is fast taking hold to make sure that they will benefit the environment, agriculture and wildlife, and not just create a sea of silicon.

Allowing sheep to graze among solar panels has become one attractive antidote.

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Source: Bay Journal

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