Tag Archive for: Follow the Sun Tour

Follow the Sun Tour Minnesota

By: Stacie Peterson

Minnesota is a leader in agrisolar, thanks to innovative policies, inspiring research, and a committed network of agrivoltaic and pollinator advocates. The Follow the Sun Tour had the opportunity to visit four of Minnesota’s AgriSolar sites on an action-packed summer day full of site visits, speakers, and a social networking event on August 4, 2022. 

We began the day by gathering at Connexus Energy’s Headquarters. After group introductions, we boarded a bus, which served as a mobile conference room, and heard from our first speaker, Heidi Kolbeck-Urlacher from Center for Rural Affairs. Heidi spoke about the Center’s work in agrivoltaics and their work as a partner of the AgriSolar Clearinghouse.

Heidi Kokbeck-Urlacher Speaking on the Follow the Sun Bus

Our first tour stop was the Enel North America Lake Pulaski site. This site combines solar, pollinators, an apiary, and sheep grazing. Jesse Puckett and Eric Bjorklund from Enel North America gave a safety briefing, an overview of the site, and described Enel’s agrisolar work around the world. 

Jesse Puckett and Eric Bjorklund of Enel North America Speaking at Lake Pulaski

Jesse then passed it off to Jake Janski and Audrey Lomax from Minnesota Native Landscapes (MNL), who described the plant and sheep grazing management process and studies at the site.

Jake Janski Describing MNL Work at the Lake Pulaski Site

Solar Grazing Sheep at Lake Pulaski

Audrey Lomax Fielding Questions from Tour Attendees

Jordan Macknick, James McCall, Abbi Brown, Haley Paterson, and Benjamin Frank from NREL talked about their InSPIRE project work and their robust studies of the Lake Pulaski site and the relation to other InSPIRE research projects around the country.

Jordan Macknick and James McCall Describing NREL’s InSPIRE Research and Work
Iara Lacher Taking Photos of Pollinators

Dustin Vanasse from Bare Honey then treated the group to an experience of a lifetime.  He brought six beekeeper suits and let the group interact with an active hive on the site.

Follow the Sun Tour Attendee with a Close-Up View of the Hive

Beekeeping with Dustin Vanasse of Bare Honey at Lake Pulaski

While we took turns in the bee suits, John Vaughn from the Minnesota Rural Renewable Energy Alliance talked about their work. After removing the beekeeper suits, we boarded the bus and heard from Wendy Caldwell from Monarch Joint Venture about the positive impacts of solar pollinator habitat on the monarch population while we enjoyed Bare Honey solar grown honey sticks.

Wendy Caldwell Capturing Photos of Monarch Caterpillars

Our second stop took us to the US Solar’s Big Lake facility. We had so much help from Rob Schultz on navigating to these sites, and I am so grateful he was there to guide us through the day.

Rob Schultz Discussing How to Help Us Find the Next Tour Stop

At Big Lake, we heard from Colleen Hollinger from Natural Resource Services and Peter Schmitt and Ross Abbey from US Solar.

Colleen Hollinger Describing AgriSolar Impacts to the Surrounding Ecosystem 

Peter Schmitt and Ross Abbey Providing a Tour of US Solar’s Big Lake Site

Back on the bus, Dan Shaw talked with us about his work with pollinators and solar, including his work developing the pollinator scorecard system.

Dan Shaw and Wendy Caldwell at the US Solar Big Lake Site

We then stopped at the at the Connexus’ Solar + Storage Site (link to case study), where our partner Rob Davis talked about Connexus’ work in agrisolar and sustainable energy. Heidi Hartman from Argonne National Lab discussed her research into the ecosystem services at the site and brought a group of researchers with her to collect data from the site.

Rob Davis Describing Connexus Energy’s Solar + Storage Site

Heidi Hartmann Describing Argonne Ecosystem Services Research at the Connexus Site

Group Photo at the Connexus Solar Plus Storage Site

We finished the day with a Solar Farm to Table Sampler, sponsored by Enel North America, through a grant to the National Center for Appropriate Technology’s AgriSolar Education program. This event featured food and beverages grown at solar farms and was held at Connexus Energy Headquarters.

Chefs Erin Lucas and Mateo Mackbee created a wonderful menu of delicious food, including spicy braised lamb flat bread with chiltepin peppers from the Biosphere agrisolar site, and lamb from Cannon Valley Graziers and Minnesota Native Landscapes Minnesota; a solar greens salad with solar-grown honey and sweet grass vinaigrette featuring honey from Connexus and Enel solar in Minnesota and greens and sweet grass from NREL and Colorado solar; saffron vegetable skewers featuring saffron from Vermont solar; vegetables from NREL and Colorado solar; Minnesota solar-grown peach and plum cobbler, featuring fruit from Enel solar in Minnesota. 

Chef’s Erin Lucas and Mateo MackBee
Delicious Solar-grown Food at the Solar Sampler Event

The chefs cooked the food with solar power, including a solar generator and a solar-powered electric truck, powered by the Connexus Headquarters solar array. For drinks, solar-grown honey sweetened the lemonade and Rob Davis’s signature cocktail, Everything but the Stinger, featuring Clif Family’s solar-grown honey ginger syrup. Invictus Brewing treated the group to their 1.7 Million Megawatts British Summer Ale, made with solar-grown honey.

The sampler was an excellent networking opportunity and chance to discuss what we learned and witnessed through the day. There was so much excitement about future projects and partnerships and plans. The hum of enthusiasm was palpable. 

Networking at the Follow the Sun Tour

While folks connected, we heard from Greg Ridderbush, Connexus Energy’s CEO, about their commitment to agrivoltaics and sustainable energy and the great work performed by the company. We then heard again from Jesse Puckett and from Rob Davis, and I wrapped up the day with a hearty toast to our AgriSolar Clearinghouse community. 

Connexus Energy CEO Greg Ridderbush

As I milled around, I watched the AgriSolar network strengthen and expand. Folks made plans, dreamed up future events, talked about partnerships, exchanged business cards, and enjoyed each other’s company. As our stakeholder Lucy Stolzenberg said, the only way to make the event better would be to have another!

A Toast with Invictus Brewing’s 1.7 Million Megawatts British Summer Ale

Learn How Massachusetts Farmers Harvest the Sun Twice During the AgriSolar Clearinghouse ‘Follow the Sun’ Tour

The AgriSolar Clearinghouse, developed by the National Center for Appropriate Technology (NCAT) is bringing its Follow the Sun tour to three dual-use farms in Massachusetts on August 10. Follow the Sun is a series of hands-on field trips to see firsthand the benefits of co-locating sustainable agriculture and solar energy. The Massachusetts tour includes visits to the University of Massachusetts Amherst South Deerfield research site, the Million Little Sunbeams family farm in Monson, and Grafton Solar in Grafton.

“AgriSolar allows us to harvest the sun twice. As America’s appetite for sustainably grown products and renewable energy continues to increase, agrisolar has the potential to provide both resources,” says NCAT Energy Program Director Dr. Stacie Peterson. “The research underway in Massachusetts combined with the working farms already using their land to produce food and energy provide us with a tremendous learning opportunity and hands-on experience for farmers to see how they might diversify their businesses with solar.”

Join Peterson, UMass researchers, and family farmers who are leading the way on growing crops beneath renewable-energy-producing solar arrays. Knowlton Farms in Grafton is using 13 acres to produce 6.2 megawatts of clean energy, avoiding nearly 6,200 tons of carbon emissions a year. At the UMASS South Deerfield demonstration farm, researchers are looking at the social, economic, and agricultural productivity impacts of pairing solar and farming.

“With support from the U.S. Department of Energy, the UMass Clean Energy Extension and university colleagues in the Center for Agriculture, Food, and the Environment and Resource Economics are researching the impacts of agrivoltaics on agricultural productivity and the farm economy,” says Dwayne Breger, Director, UMass Clean Energy Extension. “We are excited to build on the research at our experimental station with site trials embedded in commercial “dual-use” solar installations to bring more data and understanding across a broader range of agriculture of this technology and its role in agriculture and our renewable energy future.”

NCAT created the nation’s first AgriSolar Clearinghouse to connect farmers, ranchers, land managers, solar developers, and researchers with trusted, practical information to increase the appropriate co-location of solar and agriculture. It’s funded by the U.S. Department of Energy. The AgriSolar Clearinghouse features a library of more than 400 peer-reviewed articles, a media hub featuring videos, podcasts, and relevant news, and a user forum to directly connect people interested in agrivoltaic development in real-time. Partner organizations include leading universities, the Smithsonian, sustainable agriculture and energy advocates, the Center for Rural Affairs, and the national energy laboratories.

The benefits of co-locating solar with appropriate agricultural land include producing food, conserving ecosystems, creating renewable energy, increasing pollinator habitat, and maximizing farm revenue.

The AgriSolar Clearinghouse’s free Follow the Sun Tour will stop at about a dozen agrivoltaic sites over the next two years. Future field trips will include visits to sites in Colorado, Idaho, Oregon, New York and more. Sign up for the AgriSolar Extra to be sure you know about upcoming Follow the Sun Tour stops.

Follow the Sun Tour: Learning from Arizona’s Biosphere 2 and Manzo Elementary 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. Greg Barron-Gafford
Sewing seeds for 2022 research
On-site agrivoltaic research at Biosphere 2
Biosphere Agrivoltaic Research
Follow the Sun Tour’s first stop: Biosphere 2
Manzo Elementary’s agrivoltaic site
Manzo Elementary’s Mariah Rogers explaining agrivoltaic food science

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! 

NCAT’s AgriSolar Clearinghouse Launches National ‘Follow the Sun’ Tour

The AgriSolar Clearinghouse, developed by the National Center for Appropriate Technology (NCAT) is launching a series of hands-on field trips to see firsthand the benefits of co-locating sustainable agriculture and solar energy. The Follow the Sun Tour’s first stop is April 5 at Biosphere 2 in Oracle, Arizona.

“AgriSolar allows us to harvest the sun twice. As America’s appetite for sustainably grown products and renewable energy continues to increase, agrisolar has the potential to provide both resources,” says NCAT Energy Program Director Dr. Stacie Peterson. “The Follow the Sun Tour will visit agrivoltaic sites around the country that are seeing success with things like co-located grazing, habitat rehabilitation, crop production, and cutting-edge research. Our national network of partners includes the world’s leading agrivoltaic experts and we are excited to connect the public with partners like Dr. Greg Barron-Gafford and provide the opportunity to tour his research sites.”  

Join Peterson and leading agrivoltaic researcher Dr. Barron-Gafford on a tour of the agrisolar research underway at Biosphere 2. Biosphere 2 is the world’s largest controlled environment dedicated to understanding the impacts of climate change. Operated by the University of Arizona, the facility includes 3.14 acres, with 7.2 million cubic feet sealed underneath glass domes. Barron-Gafford and his team are investigating the potential for reintroducing vegetation into the typical PV power plant installation in drylands. His research shows that this approach may lead to increased renewable energy production, increased food production, and reduced water use. For interested participants, the tour will continue to the Manzo Elementary School Agrivoltaic site in Tucson.

Space is limited. RSVP is required.

NCAT created the nation’s first AgriSolar Clearinghouse to connect farmers, ranchers, land managers, solar developers, and researchers with trusted, practical information to increase the appropriate co-location of solar and agriculture. It’s funded by the U.S. Department of Energy. The AgriSolar Clearinghouse features a library of more than 400 peer-reviewed articles, a media hub featuring videos, podcasts, and relevant news, and a user forum to directly connect people interested in agrivoltaic development in real-time. Partner organizations include leading universities, the Smithsonian, sustainable agriculture and energy advocates, the Center for Rural Affairs, and the national energy laboratories.

The benefits of co-locating solar with appropriate agricultural land include producing food, conserving ecosystems, creating renewable energy, increasing pollinator habitat, and maximizing farm revenue.

The AgriSolar Clearinghouse’s free Follow the Sun Tour will stop at about a dozen agrivoltaic sites over the next two years. Future field trips will include visits to sites in Colorado, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Oregon, New York and more. Sign up for the AgriSolar Extra to be sure you know about upcoming Follow the Sun Tour stops.