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Best Practices in Agrisolar

Agrisolar is the co-location of agriculture and solar energy in a landscape. This guide covers the state-of-the-art best practices for growing crops, grazing, beekeeping, and creating pollinator habitat under and around solar arrays. A chief…
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Solar Thermal Energy

By Stacie Peterson and Chris Lent, National Center for Appropriate Technology Agrivoltaics is a practice defined as the co-location of crops and grazing under and adjacent to solar photovoltaic panels. The concept of agrisolar co-location…
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Case Study: Fiddlehead Farms

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,…
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SCAPES Agrivoltaics Survey 

As agrivoltaics gain traction across the United States, research on barriers and opportunities for co-locating agriculture with solar is expanding. The SCAPES solar research project, led by the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, has…
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Solar Panel Shade and Potential Health Impacts

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Stakeholder Engagement in Agrisolar: Co-producing Optimal Outcomes

This publication intends to inspire critical thinking about the importance of social aspects in agrisolar projects. We highlight considerations related to cultural landscapes, social acceptance, and participatory planning and offer lessons learned from case studies and a Stakeholder Engagement Plan to empower project planners and stakeholders. The intended audience for this chapter includes project planners, community developers, solar developers, researchers, landowners, and community members. While broad, the intent is to provide background, context, and considerations for these different audiences and an approach to meaningful engagement.
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Crops Uniquely Suited to Growth in Agrivoltaic Settings  

Gary Paul Nabhan, PhD., Agroecologist, Borderlands Restoration Network  When most Americans think of crop production, they tend to imagine crops growing in full sunlight to achieve their full potential for productivity. But over decades,there…
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Case Study: Existing Solar as Farmland Access for Emerging Farmers 

By Rob Davis, Connexus Energy  “Growing Farmers, Growing Foods” is the mission at Minnesota-based Big River Farms, a program of 501(c)3 nonprofit The Food Group. They recently won the North American Agrivoltaics Award for Best Solar…
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Ecosystem Services of Habitat-Friendly Solar Energy 

Leroy J. Walston, Heidi Hartmann, Laura Fox, Michael Ricketts, Ben Campbell, and Indraneel Bhandari, Argonne National Laboratory   This section highlights several types of agrivoltaic options related to ecosystem services that…
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Solar Grazing Best Management Practices 

American Solar Grazing Association  1. Introduction to Solar Grazing  …
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Case Study: MNL Pollinator Friendly Conservation Grazing

MNL is an organization with a mission to “Heal the Earth,” through ecological restoration and native species landscaping. As the organization progressed, they established projects on solar sites, including conservation grazing and prioritizing…
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Case Study: Caleb Scott, United Agrivoltaics

In 2012, Caleb Scott was working with solar developers to help seed and build sites. As he got more involved in the industry, his job expanded to help properly maintain these sites. Scott began mowing the solar sites but quickly realized it…
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AgriSolar News