By Anna Richmond-Mueller, NCAT Energy Analyst Known as the “Sunshine State,” it’s easy to see why solar energy production should be right at home in Florida. The state is also one of the country’s top agricultural producers, raising billions of dollars worth of specialty crops and livestock each year. Agrivoltaics seems like a natural fit […]
Across the country, farmers, landowners, researchers, and solar companies are working together to harvest the sun twice: once with crops, honey, pollinators, and forage for grazing animals, and again with solar panels. This co-location of solar and agriculture is known as agrisolar or agrivoltaics. In Harvesting the Sun, the leading voices of the agrivoltaic movement […]
Southcentral Alaska is home to the state’s first agrivoltaics project, a study that aims to uncover the best practices for harvesting from both land and sun. The research team will monitor both farmed crops and native berry plants that grow between the rows of panels at an operational solar PV array. The solar array is situated in the Matanuska-Susitna Valley, where the majority of Alaska’s farmland is located.
In this explainer video, AgriSolar Clearinghouse Director Stacie Peterson offers up five things to know about agrisolar and crops.
In this explainer video, AgriSolar Clearinghouse Director Stacie Peterson offers up five things to know about agrisolar and grazing.
In this explainer video, AgriSolar Clearinghouse Director Stacie Peterson offers up five things to know about agrisolar and pollinator habitat and beekeeping.
Coming February 27th: The Agrisolar Short Film Harvesting the Sun!
This fact sheet from the U.S. Department of Energy is meant to provide background information for frequently asked questions regarding solar in rural America.
This article discusses solar panel efficiency as a function of the location’s microclimate within which it is immersed. Researchers present a model for solar panel efficiency that incorporates the influence of the panel’s microclimate, derived from first principles and validated with field observations. The model proves that PV panel efficiency is influenced by insolation, air temperature, wind speed, and relative humidity. The researchers then classified solar power production potential based on local land cover classification and found that croplands have the greatest median solar potential. Agrivoltaic systems may alleviate land competition or other spatial constraints for solar power development, creating a significant opportunity for future energy sustainability.
This article, written by AgriSolar Clearinghouse partners at Argonne National Lab and NREL, discusses the results of a five-year field study to understand how insect communities respond to newly established habitat on solar energy facilities in agricultural landscapes. Researchers found an increase in all habitat and biodiversity metrics, including a rise in abundance and diversity for both flowering plants and insects. Positive effects on the frequency of bee visitation to a nearby soybean field were also recorded. Their observations provide support for solar-pollinator habitat as a feasible conservation practice to safeguard biodiversity and increase food security in agricultural landscapes.
