By Brysen Daughton
Farmers today face mounting challenges to make ends meet, including unpredictable weather patterns due to climate change, increasing water scarcity, rising energy costs, shrinking profit margins, and the increasing cost of land. These pressures threaten both agricultural productivity and the long-term viability of farmland. At the same time, traditional energy infrastructure often fails to meet the needs of rural communities, leaving farmers with limited access to affordable, sustainable power. Agrivoltaics offers a promising solution by combining solar energy generation with agricultural production, enabling farmers to diversify their income, reduce irrigation demands, and improve crop resilience through the shade and microclimate that solar panels create.
Defining Agrivoltaics
Agriculture + Solar = Agrivoltaics
According to the US Department of Energy, “Agrivoltaics is a configuration that allows for dual land use through the deployment of on-farm solar while maintaining agricultural production on the land underneath and/or in between the solar panels.” (Agrivoltaics Basics)
Agrivoltaics essentially combines solar arrays with crop production, grazing, and/or ecosystem services (like pollinator habitats). There are several terms that are used interchangeably with agrivoltaics or are used to highlight the “type” of agrivoltaics, such as AgriSolar, Solar Grazing, Lambscaping, AVS, and Cattle-voltaics among others.
Ecovoltaics is another common type of agrivoltaic system that provides ecosystem services beyond traditional solar and includes considerations for minimizing ecological impacts associated with the siting and construction of a system. Cultivating pollinator habitats and pollinator-friendly pastures is one example of how Cloudbreak is implementing Ecovoltaics into our projects.
Although agrivoltaics offer a promising pathway to address many of the challenges facing farmers and the electricity grid, its widespread adoption remains limited due to a lack of awareness, supportive policies, and research on best practices. Exploring and adopting agrivoltaics is critical to enhancing farm resilience, reducing environmental impacts, and fostering sustainable rural development. As a local renewable energy developer, Cloudbreak Energy Partners, LLC (“Cloudbreak”) cares about the communities we work in and strives to provide economic and environmental benefits to the land under and around our solar developments. To ensure we are thoughtfully exploring the opportunities and challenges to adopting agrivoltaics, Cloudbreak partnered with a team of graduate students from the University of Colorado Boulder’s Masters of the Environment (“MENV”) program to research best practices for designing and implementing agrivoltaic systems. The MENV Graduate Program is a professional, interdisciplinary master’s degree that equips students with the analytical skills and practical expertise needed to address complex environmental challenges. The program offers specializations in Renewable and Sustainable Energy, Sustainable Food Systems, Urban Resilience and Sustainability, and Environmental and Natural Resource Policy, preparing graduates to make a meaningful impact in public, private, and nonprofit sectors. Cloudbreak’s MENV team was made up of students from each of these specializations, which underscores the importance of an interdisciplinary approach to implementing an agrivoltaics project.
The MENV team spent most of 2024 working with Cloudbreak to expand our understanding of how we can successfully design projects to garner the multitude of benefits that an agrivoltaics system can offer and avoid the pitfalls that may hinder the feasibility of a project. To complete this research, the MENV team prepared three deliverables for Cloudbreak:
- A robust literature review, evaluating and compiling the existing and ongoing research into agrivoltaics.
- A best practices guide, which builds off of the literature review to provide guidance on the challenges and considerations for designing an agrivoltaic system, including considerations for economic, social, and environmental impacts.
- A crop selector tool that provides crop and grazing recommendations based on soil type, sun/shade tolerance, row spacing, temperature, humidity, rainfall, and planting/harvesting times.
To inform the best practices guide and crop selection tool, the MENV graduate team compiled and reviewed over 100 articles, including several academic papers that explored various agrivoltaic case studies and research topics. Several of these articles have been compiled and published in the AgriSolar Clearinghouse’s Information Library. In addition to this literature review, the MENV team interviewed multiple industry experts to further understand the nuances and barriers that successful agrivoltaic projects must overcome to provide the optimal balance of economic, social, environmental, and grid benefits.
Cloudbreak’s MENV team focused its best practices guidance and research on four target markets: California, Colorado, Oregon, and Washington, which each have heavily concentrated yet distinct agricultural economies. Across these markets, the graduate student team researched the opportunities, barriers, and considerations for installing an agrivoltaic system based on location, soil type, planting and harvesting times, as well as crop-specific considerations like the minimum and maximum tolerance for rainfall, humidity, temperature, and sunlight, as well as spacing (row width, crop height, crop spacing, ideal placement, etc.). In addition to these considerations, the group researched local crop production, community sentiment, and the presence of local agrivoltaic policies to provide Cloudbreak with holistic insights into where and how agrivoltaic projects can be successfully implemented.
With this crop and climate information, the MENV team built Cloudbreak a proprietary tool to explore which crops would grow best under, in between, and outside of a solar array based on the soil type and environmental conditions. Pairing this tool with the team’s research into the local commodity production and the best practices guide, Cloudbreak can effectively explore various agrivoltaic implementations on any given parcel. Additionally, we can include insights from the publicly available Agrivoltaics Simulation Tool to begin modeling the net impacts on solar production and crop growth based on the system layout and chosen crops. These reports and tools offer a first-level assessment for Cloudbreak and our landowners to make informed decisions for integrating agrivoltaic mechanisms into our solar designs.
What benefits do Agrivoltaic systems offer beyond traditional agriculture or solar installations?
Thoughtfully designed agrivoltaic systems can offer:
- Reduced crop irrigation needs (up to 50% in some cases),
- Higher crop yields (for certain crops),
- Decreased plant stress,
- Increased crop protection from extreme weather events,
- Boosted solar panel efficiency,
- Improved soil health,
- Increased carbon sequestration,
- Strengthened overall ecosystem health,
- Increased native species abundance,
- Decreased vegetation management costs,
- Improved forage quality in grazing implementations,
- Increased the local pollinator population, including bees, butterflies, birds, and bats,
- Diversified farm revenue,
- Improved crop marketability,
- Increased rural energy independence and security.
How is Cloudbreak implementing agrivoltaics into existing projects
Cloudbreak has projects in all stages of development and operation, and every project to date has included some form of agrivoltaics or ecovoltaics. These include:
- Native, pollinator-friendly pastures. For every project, Cloudbreak partners with local seed companies to identify and procure native seed mixtures that minimize water usage and provide ecosystem services to local pollinators.
- Pollinator habitats. In 2023, Cloudbreak partnered with the Audobon of the Rockies to plant a bird-friendly, pollinator habitat around our Griffiths 1 solar project in Johnstown, Colorado. (https://rockies.audubon.org/habitat-hero/griffiths-solar-one#6)
- Solar grazing/lambscaping. Solar grazing or landscaping are a few of the terms for the rotational grazing of sheep under solar panels. This is a carbon- and cost-effective way to manage the pasture underneath the solar array. Solar grazing can also result in long-term, improved soil health due to nitrogen fixation and carbon sequestration, which enriches the soil throughout the life of the project.
- Drought-tolerant vegetative screening. When vegetative screening is necessary for our projects, we work with experts to identify screening options that are drought-tolerant and water-friendly.
- Innovation and collaboration. Cloudbreak is excited to work with landowners and communities to explore various agrivoltaic implementations that contribute to the local economy and improve the quality of local agricultural lands.
Are you interested in exploring an agrivoltaic project on your property?
Whether you are looking to lease your land, learn more about agrivoltaics and solar, or connect with us – our team is always here to help.
To learn more, please contact Brysen Daughton at brysen@cloudbreakenergy.com.
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