Sheep grazing under solar panels. By Jessica Guarino and Tyler Swanson   The U.S. agrivoltaics industry continues to grow as the desire to pair solar energy production land uses with pollinator habitats, livestock grazing, and…

In this first episode of the AgriSolar Clearinghouse webinar series, NREL’s Jordan Macknick, James McCall, and Haley Paterson join us to discuss the context and costs of agrivoltaics in the United States.

When it comes to conversations surrounding energy and water use in the modern world, the agricultural industry’s consumption of both is often at the forefront. As the world’s population continues to grow, humanity is tasked with the challenge…

A study led by Emma Kampherbeek (Wageningen University & Research, the Netherlands)  highlights multiple benefits of coupling solar energy production to sheep grazing in rangeland systems. This project investigated how sheep use solar arrays as a forage site and the impacts of solar array presence on forage quality in a California Central Coast site with a Mediterranean climate. Sheep with access to solar panels graze more than when they are on nearby native rangeland without an array.  This increased foraging behavior is likely driven by a combination of the protection that the array provides the sheep from weather conditions, which increases grazing time, as well as increased protein content and digestibility of forage with the array footprint.