Agrivoltaics - Part One
Tim Hammerich
News Reporter
As solar energy has grown and expanded in acreage, some solar companies are looking for ways to be better stewards of the land under where their panels are located. Silicon Ranch owns and operates solar power plants across 15 states. CTO Nick de Vries said they’ve become committed to agrivoltaics, which involves growing forage and grazing sheep underneath their existing solar panels.
De Vries… “At first, this was just a place for the solar panels and the equipment to be, but then what types of forage were we growing? Uh, were they beneficial? Were they invasive species? What types of species really turn into fire fuel? Russian thistle or tumbleweed is really flammable, whereas a healthy short or long grass prairie is more resilient. So how could we steward our land? How could we promote good ecological health in our land? And then see how that added to the operations of our power plants, improved our resilience as a power plant and again made us better neighbors in the communities we serve.”
De Vries sees this combination of energy generation and agricultural production as a model that can be replicated in many more areas.
