The purpose of this guide is to help Michigan communities meet the challenge of becoming solar- ready by addressing SES within their planning policies and zoning regulations. This document illustrates how various scales and configurations of photovoltaic SES fit into landscape patterns ranging between rural, suburban, and urban. This guide will aid in community development and guidance related to public policy decisions related to solar energy development, which often includes agrivoltaic operations and development as well.
Tag Archive for: Agrivoltaics
By Dr. Stacie Peterson
The interdisciplinary research at Biosphere 2 and Manzo Elementary School in Tucson, Arizona is foundational for agrivoltaics in the United States. My first introduction to agrivoltaics came from research at these sites, in the article Agrivoltaics Provide Mutual Benefits Across the Food-Energy-Water Nexus in Drylands. The opportunity to tour these sites, meet the researchers, and provide the AgriSolar Clearinghouse network with a way to connect was exciting indeed.
The tour started at the Biosphere 2 site, where Dr. Greg Barron-Gafford and graduate students Kai Lepley, Alyssa Salazar, Nesrine Rouini, and Caleb Ortega described their research, findings, and future projects. Greg provided a background of Biosphere 2, research conducted at the site, its application to agrivoltaics throughout the country, and its correlation to work at the Manzo Agrivoltaic site.
Kai Lepley and Nesrine Rousini then described their work employing classic plant physiological instruments and novel ground-based remote sensing tools for tracking plant phenology and growth. Alyssa Salazar described her studies on agrivoltaics impacts to the phenology and growing season patterns of different crops across our growing seasons and how this research can help determine how this approach might extend the growing seasons of certain crops. Caleb Ortega described his planting approach as well as efficient and creative ways of collecting data. They then asked the tour to help plant seeds for next years’ agrivoltaic experiments.
After a tour of the Biosphere 2 complex, the group travelled to Manzo Elementary Agrivoltaic site, where Mariah Rogers, Mira Kaibara, Stacy Evans, and Dr. Andrea Gerlak led a lunch-and-learn about the food science, social science, citizen science, student activities, and agrivoltaic food programs. Mariah’s research involves blind taste tests of agrivoltaic and traditionally grown crops to determine if there are detectable differences in preference.
Dr. Andrea Gerlak, professor of Public Policy at the University of Arizona with extensive experience working on water resource policy and management issues, described her research, and its correlation to work by Alexis Pascaris, and their collaboration on the USDA-NIFA grant for agrivoltaics research (SCAPES project). Alexis is a social scientist whose research involves engaging key stakeholders – including farmers and solar industry professionals – to understand their perspectives about opportunities and barriers to agrivoltaics, which helps inform policy innovation and identify pathways to advance dual-use development responsibly.
We were lucky enough to be joined by Alexis Pascaris of AgriSolar Consulting, Thomas Hickey of Sandbox Solar, Gema Martinez of BayWa r.e., Brian Naughton of Circle Two and Sandia National Laboratories, Mark Peterson of the Montana Department of Environmental Quality, and AgriSolar Clearinghouse Partner Coordinator, Danielle Miska. In coming months, we will lead tours to Minnesota, Colorado, Oregon, California, Massachusetts, Idaho, New York, and Texas. We hope you’ll join us!
Stanford University engineers have announced that they have developed a new type of solar cell capable of generating electricity not just during the day but also at night, according to a recent report by National Public Radio.
The new technology includes a device that incorporates a thermoelectric generator, pulling electricity from “the small difference in temperature between the ambient air and the solar cell itself,” according to the report.
A recent study published by the journal Applied Physics Letters states that the new solar device serves as “continuous renewable power source for both day- and nighttime, and the approach can provide nighttime standby lighting and power in off-grid and mini-grid applications, where solar-cell installations are gaining popularity.”
To learn more about the new technology, read the NPR report here.
The purpose of this guide is to help Michigan communities meet the challenge of becoming solar ready by addressing SES within their planning policies and zoning regulations. This document illustrates how various scales and configurations of photovoltaic SES fit into landscape patterns ranging between rural, suburban, and urban.
AgriSolar Clearinghouse Visits Biosphere 2
“The AgriSolar Clearinghouse is taking a national tour of operational agrivoltaic operations, sharing knowledge, and bringing attention to a practice with numerous (and perhaps unexpected) benefits. The first stop on the tour is the agrivoltaic array at Biosphere 2, a research center run by the University of Arizona. Biosphere 2 is nothing short of incredible, it is a 3.14-acre laboratory in the middle of the hot, dry Sonoran Desert that is referred to as the world’s largest earth science experiment. Contained inside the massive facility is a climate-controlled environment, complete with ocean, rainforest, mangrove, desert, and savanna-simulating conditions.” – PV Magazine
Rooftop Agrivoltaics Shows Potential to Revolutionize Urban Farming
“Rooftop agrivoltaics have the potential to revolutionize urban farming. Just like the multifunctionality of agroforestry, which arguably revolutionized rural farming in the 1980s and 1990s, the multifunctionality of rooftop agrivoltaics can provide parallel co-benefits in urban spaces. Agroforestry has the co-benefits of growing food, sequestering carbon, and providing other ecosystem services in the same space – rooftop agrivoltaics is an urban analog. Although, rather than storing energy in the form of slow-growing biomass (wood), it harnesses the power of a rapidly renewable source – the sun.” – Live Architecture Monitor
New Agrivoltaic Solar Canopy Designed in France
French solar company TSE has released a new photovoltaic canopy for applications in agrivoltaic projects. The system features a rotating canopy that can host bifacial solar modules at a height of more than 5.5 meters. The canopy is placed on a four-post structure measuring 27 m x 12 m. “Our canopy is compatible with all agricultural machinery, including very large ones like combines, sprayers and spreaders,” the company’s president, Mathieu Debonnet, told pv magazine. The company said the canopy technology is particularly suitable for cereal farms that grow rapeseed, maize, barley, and vegetable protein, as well as sheep and cattle farms.” – PV Magazine
Guest blog post by Monarch Joint Venture
Up to 99% of native northern tallgrass prairie in the U.S. has disappeared since European settlement (Samson and Knopf, 1994). This loss of habitat is devastating for pollinators including the iconic monarch butterfly, which depends on native milkweed species and a variety of nectar plants to survive. Given this stark situation, one of the most impactful conservation actions any of us can take is to plant and maintain native habitat, whether it’s a backyard pocket prairie or a large-scale restoration. Many sectors, from agriculture to managed public lands to transportation rights-of-way, are exploring the benefits of pollinator-friendly habitat. Renewable energy is no different; in fact this sector has been a pioneer in the field…the solar field, that is.
In recent years, pollinator-friendly habitat creation on photovoltaic (PV) solar sites has gained momentum across the country, with Minnesota among the earliest adopters. In 2016, Minnesota became the first state to incentivize pollinator-friendly ground cover on its solar energy sites through Minnesota Statute 216B.1642. This development came on the heels of the 2015 National Strategy to Promote the Health of Honey Bees and other Pollinators, which catalyzed new conservation strategies across the nation.
“Minnesotans value conservation and pollinator health, so it’s natural that Minnesota is a leader in this area. You also see this in the preferences expressed by leading electric utilities like Connexus and Xcel,” says Rob Davis of Connexus Energy, which participated in the short documentary, “Pollinators, Prairie, and Power,” last year. “Whether a co-op like Connexus or a private or investor-owned company, energy buyers of all kinds can use the standards published by the state’s leading pollinator experts to express preferences in their renewable energy purchasing. It’s never been easier for energy buyers to ask for high-quality habitat as a ground cover for PV solar—there are numerous developers competing to win these projects.”
This increasing interest is timely: Between 300,000 and 400,000 acres or land in the U.S. are currently being used for ground-mounted PV solar, and studies predict that 3-5 million acres of large-scale solar will be added to the landscape by 2035. According to the Solar Energy Industries Association, solar accounted for 54% of all new electricity-generating capacity added in the U.S. in the first three quarters of 2021, with projections for growth holding steady. Now is definitely the time to quantify the benefits of habitat-friendly landscaping among solar arrays, and that’s where the Monarch Joint Venture comes in.
During the summer of 2021, MJV partnered with Minnesota-based nonprofit Fresh Energy to monitor pollinator-friendly habitat on Minnesota solar developments. Founded in 1990, Fresh Energy works to shape and drive policy solutions to achieve equitable carbon-neutral economies, including habitat-friendly solar.
“We wanted to begin quantifying the impacts of pollinator-friendly solar on Minnesota’s pollinator populations,” says Michael Noble, executive director at Fresh Energy. “Habitat plantings under solar arrays can add a small amount to the cost of a solar development project, but this study shows that it’s an investment well worth making for the benefit of Minnesota’s critical pollinators.”
Using data collected during the study, MJV and Fresh Energy have released the Monitoring Pollinators on Minnesota Solar Installations report to demonstrate the potential benefits of using pollinator-friendly ground cover with solar arrays in Minnesota—as well as areas that need further research. Fresh Energy will be hosting a deeper dive into the report’s findings in a webinar on May 18th. Learn more and register here.
For the study, MJV National Monitoring Coordinator Laura Lukens surveyed four PV solar installations during June, July, and August 2021 to measure the abundance and species composition of milkweeds and flowering plants, as well as use by monarch butterflies and other pollinators. Survey and sampling protocols were designed in consultation with Argonne National Laboratory, which, in partnership with NREL’s InSPIRE study, has published research on use of native plants as solar array ground cover. The sites were located in Anoka and Ramsey counties, ranged in size from 18-68 acres, and were seeded with a native pollinator mix in either 2017 or 2018. A completed copy of Minnesota’s Habitat Friendly Solar Scorecard was available for each site. This monitoring provides essential information for solar site operators and other stakeholders to create long-term management plans to keep native ground cover thriving, and contributes to a growing amount of evidence that habitat-friendly solar sites can provide significant benefits to pollinators.
“Monitoring this habitat is important for many reasons,” says Laura. “Field surveys allow us to investigate potential impacts of solar array canopies on plant and pollinator communities and provide empirical evidence to back up what we suspect as being benefits of habitat in these spaces. With solar projected to grow by millions of acres in the next 15 years, this presents an exciting opportunity for the renewable energy sector to contribute to national pollinator and habitat conservation goals.” With more and more energy companies adopting habitat-friendly solar, this is good news indeed for pollinator conservation.
While surveying, Laura utilized a variety of monitoring protocols, including the Integrated Monarch Monitoring Program (IMMP), the MJV-administered national program that collects milkweed, flowering plant, and monarch use data from a variety of land-cover types and regions. Utilized by researchers and land managers, the IMMP also is a robust community science program designed for public participation. IMMP community and professional scientists contribute important data that are then utilized by monarch and pollinator conservationists and policymakers.
In a nutshell, over the course of the monitoring project, Laura observed a high number of flowering plant species and an abundance of bees, butterflies, moths, flies, and wasps flourishing within and adjacent to the solar arrays. “These results indicate that pollinators utilized habitat regardless of solar panel presence,” Laura shares. “And this suggests that solar installations in Minnesota can indeed provide quality breeding and foraging habitat for monarchs and other pollinators.”
At the same time, the project was limited in scope, and represents preliminary findings. Continued long-term data collection is critical for monitoring the status and trends of pollinator populations, investigating other co-benefits of solar habitat, and to ensure that pollinator-friendly practices achieve and maintain desired outcomes. Management of these sites will also be key to ensuring that habitat quality does not degrade through time.
Other researchers are studying additional co-benefits of habitat-friendly solar. For instance, PV-SMaRT, a collaborative project by the Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Great Plains Institute, Fresh Energy, and the University of Minnesota, is studying stormwater infiltration and runoff at PV solar sites across the U.S. Additionally, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Solar Energy Technology Office is funding a four-year study investigating the impacts of co-location of pollinator plantings at large-scale solar installations (>10 MW), led by the University of Illinois, Chicago, in partnership with Argonne National Laboratory, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and Cardno (now Stantec). One of this project’s goals is to create tangible guidance and tools for industry use (e.g. pollinator planting implementation manual, solar site seed selection tool, pollinator solar field assessment tool, and cost-benefit calculator).
In addition to benefits for pollinators and other organisms, native ground cover on PV solar sites can also promote soil health, improve water quality, reduce runoff, and may even boost electrical output, especially on warmer days, by keeping the microclimate near the ground cooler.
“Overall, habitat on solar arrays by itself will not solve the biodiversity crisis or arrest the decline in the monarch or other species,” Rob Davis adds. “However, solar with pollinator-friendly ground cover is setting a beneficial example for other developments to follow. All these things together with additional actions to conserve previously undisturbed lands and set more acres aside dedicated to conservation, through the USDA’s CRP and other programs, will benefit biodiversity and overall human health.”
In this paper, the researchers applied the InVEST modeling framework to investigate the potential response of four ecosystem services (carbon storage, pollinator supply, sediment retention, and water retention) to native grassland habitat restoration at 30 solar facilities across the Midwest United States.
Decomposition models of solar irradiance estimate the magnitude of diffuse horizontal irradiance from global horizontal irradiance. These two radiation components are well-known to be essential for the prediction of solar photovoltaic systems performance. In open-field agrivoltaic systems, that is the dual use of land for both agricultural activities and solar power conversion, cultivated crops receive an unequal amount of direct, diffuse and reflected photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) depending on the area they are growing due to the non-homogenously shadings caused by the solar panels installed (above the crops or vertically mounted). It is known that PAR is more efficient for canopy photosynthesis under conditions of diffuse PAR than direct PAR per unit of total PAR. For this reason, it is fundamental to estimate the diffuse PAR component in agrivoltaic systems studies to properly predict the crop yield.
Solar electricity from solar parks in rural areas are cost effective and can be deployed fast therefore play an important role in the energy transition. The optimal design of a solar park is largely affected by income scheme, electricity transport capacity, and land lease costs. Important design parameters for utility-scale solar parks that may affect landscape, biodiversity, and soil quality are ground coverage ratio, size, and tilt of the PV tables. Particularly, low tilt PV at high coverage reduces the amount of sunlight on the ground strongly and leads to deterioration of the soil quality over the typical 25-year lifetime. In contrast, vertical PV or an agri-PV designed fairly high above the ground leads to more and homogeneous ground irradiance; these designs are favored for pastures and croplands. In general, the amount and distribution of ground irradiance and precipitation will strongly affect which crops can grow below and between the PV tables and whether this supports the associated food chain. As agrivoltaics is the direct competition between photosynthesis and photovoltaics. Understanding when, where and how much light reaches the ground is key to relate the agri-PV solar park design to the expected agricultural and electricity yields. We have shown that by increasing the minimum height of the system, decreasing the size of the PV tables and decreasing the coverage ratio, the ground irradiance increases, in particular around the gaps between the tables. The most direct way of increasing the lowest irradiance in a solar park design is to use semi-transparent PV panels, such as the commercially available bifacial glass-glass modules. In conclusion: we have shown that we can achieve similar ground irradiance levels in an east- and west-facing design with 77% ground coverage ratio as is achieved by a south-facing design at 53% coverage.
Agrivoltaics have been shown to contribute to achieving energy and food goals simultaneously through combining agricultural production with energy production, according to a recent report by Clean Technica. The report finds that global agrivoltaic energy production has grown from 5MW in 2012 to 2,900 MW in 2020.
The diverse options available through agrivoltaics can create opportunities for community interests, can reduce land use conflicts, and increase the economic value of farms using agrivoltaic systems, according to the report. A recent study conducted by Oregon State University estimates that the U.S. could meet renewable energy goals while saving water and creating a sustainable food system by converting just one percent of American farmland to agrivoltaics.
The report highlights multiple benefits for solar developers utilizing agrivoltaics. These benefits include reduced installation costs, increased PV performance, building closer links with agricultural land, reduced upfront risk, reduced legal risk and marketing opportunities. Land managers may also benefit from developing agrivoltaics by potentially extending growing seasons and water-use reduction, according to the report.
To learn more about the details of each of these identified benefits, read the article here.
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