The solar energy industry has long been portrayed as being at odds with traditional farming, as both require lots of land and are presumably in competition with one another.
However, a new approach called "agrivoltaics" is integrating the two industries together and showing that they can coexist while benefiting one another, the Washington Post reported.
Agrivoltaics essentially allows farmers to lease parts of their land to solar companies, providing the farmers with steady, guaranteed incomes. Best of all, the land underneath the solar panels is still theirs to use for things like grazing or for plants that require lots of shade. Even if sellable crops aren't plantable under the solar panels, farmers can still install native plants and flowers that support local pollinators, in turn supporting their other crops.
"If they are managed well, [agrivoltaic farms] are increasing biodiversity, sequestering carbon and increasing soil organic matter. The benefits are numerous," said Loran Shallenberger, senior director of regenerative energy operations for Silicon Ranch, a Nashville, Tennessee-based solar energy company.
The farmers that have bought into this business opportunity — at least the ones the Post spoke to — seem very happy with their decision. One was using a portion of his family farm for "solar grazing," in which sheep graze under the solar arrays.
"You're getting paid to graze your sheep," he said.
If cattle farmers were to also embrace agrivoltaics en masse, that could make a huge difference for the solar industry and for our planet, as cattle farming is much more prevalent than sheep farming in the U.S. (although with its own environmental drawbacks).
As our planet continues to overheat largely as a result of the air pollution created by dirty energy companies, it is clear that we need to switch away from energy sources like gas and oil and toward clean, renewable sources like wind and solar as quickly as humanly possible.
Agrivoltaics has the potential to convince a lot more landowners to sign onto that project — and help themselves in the process.
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