Entries by Danielle Miska

Biosphere 2 Agrivoltaic Learning Lab

Biosphere 2, located in Oracle, Arizona, houses one of the first agrivoltaic research sites in the United States. The site was built seven years ago with a 21.6-kW solar PV array shading a 9×18-meter garden. Greg Barron-Gafford, along with several graduate students, use this garden to study the changes in phenology of several varieties of […]

Adoption of Agrisolar Technologies in Hawai’i

Ridge to Reefs staff, including Emma Verlinden, Phal Mantha, and Paul Sturm Hawai’i has a deep-rooted agricultural history, and today there are more than 7,000 individual farms in operation. Due to a confluence of factors, agricultural producers in Hawai’i face a variety of significant challenges when compared with their mainland counterparts. High costs associated with […]

Pollinator Week: Wings of Life! June 20-26, 2022

Pollinator Week is an annual celebration in support of pollinator health, initiated and managed by Pollinator Partnership (P2). It is a time to raise awareness for pollinators and spread the word about what we can do to protect them. The great thing about Pollinator Week is that you can celebrate and get involved in multiple ways. […]

ASGA May Teatime: Benefits and Realities of Solar Grazing, A Checklist for Shepherds and Solar Companies

How can shepherds and solar companies understand each other’s basic requirements and seal the deal? Join us to hear about the updated “Solar Grazing Checklist for Shepherds and Solar Sites Mangers” from our friends in Vermont, who designed the checklist to help graziers and site operators understand each other’s positions. The conversation will be led […]

Characterizing the Ecological Effects of Utility-scale Photovoltaic Arrays in Rangeland

By Dr. Seeta Sistla, Natural Resources Management and Environmental Sciences Department, Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo With the dual growth of utility-scale solar energy and food production, fallowed agricultural landscapes represent a particularly promising area for the deployment of solar arrays because these systems have the potential to recover with shifts in management practices (Tscharntke et al., […]

Tasting the Fruits and Vegetables Grown Under Solar Panels

By: Mariah Rogers, Graduate Student, University of Arizona Do plants taste different under solar panels? Do they taste better? At the Biosphere 2 Agrivoltaics Learning Lab, we studied just that. Why Should We Use Agrivoltaics? Agrivoltaics—the production of agriculture and solar photovoltaic energy on the same parcel of land—is gaining attention as farmers are facing […]

To Mow or Not to Mow?

Timing field management in and around solar fields to optimize conservation opportunities for declining grassland birds Dr. Amy Johnson, Conservation Biologist and Program Director, Virginia Working Landscapes, Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute Biodiversity is declining globally at an alarming rate. While multiple ecosystems are at risk, our planet’s terrestrial grasslands are suffering precipitous […]

Financing and Incentive Options for Solar

By: Andrew Valainis Director, Montana Renewable Energy Association (MREA) According to the Solar Energy Industries Association, the cost to install solar has dropped more than 60% over the last decade alone, with the average residential system costing half of what it did in 2010.[1] Still, solar photovoltaic systems are a large investment, and the up-front […]

Characterizing the Ecological Implications of Utility-Scale Solar Energy on Fallowed Farmlands

Written By: Amanda Gersoff (M.Sc. student), Dr. Seeta Sistla Natural Resources Management and Environmental Sciences Department, Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo Our team is studying the ecological aspects of utility-scale solar arrays set on former agricultural land whose understory is maintained by sheep grazing. By gaining a better understanding of the ecological implications associated with […]

Ecosystem Services of Solar-Pollinator Habitat

By Lee Walston and Heidi Hartmann, Argonne National Laboratory Many of us have witnessed regional land-use transformations towards renewable energy in the last decade. As the fastest growing electricity generating sector in the U.S., solar energy development has grown more than 20x in the past decade and is projected to be the dominant renewable source […]