Rural communities are a necessary element of renewable energy development, but across the United States denizens of small communities protest solar farms cropping up across large swaths of land.
Developing agrivoltaics, technologies combining solar and agriculture, could help reduce community pushback against solar development.
Solar and wind farms need space, infrastructure such as convenient transmission lines, and plenty of sun/wind to create power, but many rural areas are not prepared for the industrial development that large-scale renewable energy brings to their often previously quiet communities.
Agrovoltaics, or dual-use solar, can look like many different things, but at its core it is a solar array combined with some form of agriculture.
Ways to implement agrovoltaics are to plant crops under solar panels or to graze sheep, cattle, or other animals around the panels.
But depending on the type of agriculture, the panels may need to be raised to make room for the animals or crops, which can add additional costs to development. It can also refer to planting pollinator flowers under solar panels, which is not considered agricultural but is a common way to make a solar development dual use without increasing costs dramatically.
In the agricultural community of Dove Creek, Colorado, Colten Schlegel is hoping to start an agrovoltaics vineyard that will pave the way for similar development in the currently solar-averse communities of rural Southwest Colorado.
Schlegel, who grew up in Dove Creek, knows the area well.
He hopes his familiarity with the people, environment, and economy of the area will help him establish trustworthiness in the community, especially compared to developers coming from other areas.
Most solar arrays are initiated by development companies that have the upfront capital to build large-scale projects.
These developers find land by leasing directly from landowners or public land offices.
But landowners with solar leases generally only make money from the lease agreements and rarely get profits from the energy production itself.
“The biggest concern that I think most rural people have when it comes to anything around large corporations or heavy government oversight … is that that money isn’t going into the local economy,” said Schlegel.
He envisions a coalition of local farmers collaborating on an agrovoltaic or solar farm with the participants receiving direct compensation for the power, instead of only leasing land to developers.
He also wants to provide resources to farmers who want to supplement income from agriculture with solar energy production income.
“If that money is going to the farmers, it’s going into the local economy… and it’s gonna strengthen the local power grid as well,” he said.
But there are challenges involved with agrovoltaics projects and one of the biggest ones is cost.
Without policy to drive investment into agrovoltaics or dual-use development, there is no incentive for developers or utilities to spend more while developing solar.
Jack’s Solar Garden, in Longmont, Colorado, is the largest commercially active research site for agrovoltaics in the United States.
Through partnerships with the University of Arizona, Colorado State University, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and Sprout City Farms, Jack’s Solar Garden aims to make agrovoltaics more accessible and educate farmers, developers, and community members about the benefits of agrovoltaics and dual-use solar.
Byron Kominek, the founder of Jack’s Solar Garden and director of the Colorado Agrivoltaic Learning Center, says that the height of solar panels is dictated by the potential for snow or flooding — the panels cannot touch the ground.
In Colorado, this means that the low edge (solar panels are tilted to pick up more sun) would sit around 2 feet off the ground.
When planting crops underneath, the panels need to be raised higher than the growing crops, anywhere from one to ten feet tall.
“I recommend folks consider the variability in the ag industry where being able to diversify what you grow over time can make more business sense than sticking with one crop,” said Kominek.
“I’d think if you can keep cattle within a solar array, the panels are likely high enough for the majority of crops you’d be interested in growing.”
Kominek said that the panel height for cattle is not set in stone and is still being debated and depends on many variables with the cattle, but would probably call for the low edge of the panel to be no lower than 7-8 feet off the ground — a big increase from the standard of 2 feet off the ground.
This storywas produced through the Daily YonderRural Reporting Fellowship, with support from the LOR Foundation. LOR works with people in rural places to improve quality of life. This story was shared via Rocky Mountain Community Radio, a network of public media stations in Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and New Mexico including Aspen Public Radio.
