Climate Change & Conservation eNews

Oregon is home to more than 37,000 farms across 16 million acres of the state. Our agricultural producers raise animals, supply dairy products, and grow food – and sometimes even generate renewable energy. Wind energy is a good fit in several rural areas of the state where there are strong wind resources and development is compatible with land use and agricultural requirements. While many in the agricultural community have concerns about the ability to farm around solar arrays, for some Oregon farms and ranches, solar development could fit well into their cropping or grazing operations. Such “dual-use development” is subject to rules adopted in 2018 by the Oregon Land Conservation and Development Commission.

“There is potential for agrivoltaic systems – where agriculture and solar panels coexist – to provide increased passive cooling through taller panel heights [emphasis added], more reflective ground cover and higher evapotranspiration rates compared to traditional solar farms,” said senior author Max Zhang, professor in the Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering [at Cornell], “We can generate renewable electricity and conserve farmland through agrivoltaic systems.”

In New York, for example, about 40% of utility-scale solar farm capacity has been developed on agricultural lands, while about 84% of land deemed suitable for utility-scale solar development is agricultural, according to a previous research study from Zhang’s group…

A roof of solar panels shades Pierre Escudie as he inspects the last plump grapes to be harvested at his vineyard in southwest France, after a year of hard frosts and blistering heat that damaged many of his neighbors’ crops.

The solar panels insulate the grapes during periods of extreme cold and shield them from the sun’s harsh rays during heat waves. The panels also rotate to allow more light to hit the vines on more overcast days…

The Act clarifies that an agrivoltaic project is to be treated as an agricultural use, meaning that the land can continue to be classified as agricultural land for property tax purposes and that the project is exempt from special permit requirements.

This change in law further illustrates the legislature’s intent to help farmers continue their farming operations by utilizing renewable energy, and particularly solar energy, as a means of maintaining their land in agricultural use.

Converting arable land to energy production undermines the future of farming. But innovators like Nate know it doesn’t have to be one or the other – if done right, solar can be leveraged to support farmers, rather than threaten them.

Seeing the Massachusetts SMART program as an opportunity for revenue diversification and farmland preservation, Nate pioneered a plan to own both the solar system and the land underneath. Million Little Sunbeams does not involve a lease to a solar developer but instead was designed to allow the Tassinari family to sell the excess energy to the surrounding community — a win for the family farm that has allowed it to stay in operation…

While combining solar energy and agricultural land is not new, one component that makes the Winesolar project stand out is that it will have a tracking system, with trackers from PVH, that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to determine the most efficient solar panel positioning over the vines at any time, according to Iberdrola. Techedge, an IT firm, will help the solar panel project further the wineries’ agricultural goals.

Sensors in the vineyards will record data including soil humidity, wind conditions, solar radiation, and even vine thickness to find the optimal position for the solar panels, giving the vines a fighting chance against the effects of climate change…

Double cropping solar power and organic dairy production works successfully here, but the concept – called agrivoltaics – is still very new.

Agrivoltaics is a new umbrella term defined as any farming practices on the land supporting solar power.

Around the world, innovators are looking for ways that solar panels and agriculture can benefit from the other. Flowers, pollinator plants, alfalfa, grass, vegetables and greens, and fruits and berries are some of the potential crops that people are planting in conjunction with solar panels…

If you are driving to the West Central Research and Outreach Center (WCROC), look along U.S. Highway 59 for large pastures where cows graze among solar panels.

The cows, under the direction of Bradley Heins, Ph.D., University of Minnesota, use the panels for shade and shelter.

Double cropping solar power and organic dairy production works successfully here, but the concept — called agrivoltaics — is still very new…