![]() “The question for policymakers and landowners is, are we going to be taking out a lot of arable land-land where we could have chickens, cows, vegetables, perennials, and other things-and just putting in solar panels and having weeds grow underneath them?” Kominek asks. “Having crops and solar panels is more beneficial for the environment than solar panels alone.” “If we can actually allow farmers to diversify their production and get more out of the same land, then that can benefit them,” says Khanna. And since some plants-like those salsa ingredients in Barron-Gafford’s experiments-will use less water, that can reduce irrigation expenses. They’d produce energy to run the farm, and the farmer can sell any surplus back to a utility. “The better location for that might be further out toward the edges where it's more likely to get a little bit more sun, because we did see a yield decrease in that case.” While setting up the panels entails some up-front costs, they might actually make farmers some money, as Kominek told Grist in this 2020 story before his panels were in place. “For example, we probably wouldn't recommend that somebody plant summer squash directly in the deepest shade, directly under a panel,” says Mark Uchanski, a horticultural scientist at Colorado State University who’s studying agrivoltaics and tested that exact scenario. This is likely due to the plants being less stressed by the constant bombardment of sunlight, to which they’re not evolutionarily adapted.īut every crop is going to be different, so scientists have to test each to see how they react to shade. Barron-Gafford has also found that the pepper Capsicum annuum, which grows in the shade of trees in the wild, produces three times as much fruit in an agrivoltaic system. ![]() He’s seen this happen in basil, which would increase that crop’s yield. To collect more light, their leaves grow bigger than they would if planted in an open field. His work suggests that the panels might act as a protective bubble to shield crops from extreme heat associated with climate change, which overwhelms crops and decreases their yields.īarron-Gafford has found that a forestlike shading under solar panels elicits a physiological response from plants. ![]() (“Think if you spilled your water bottle in the shade versus the sun,” says Barron-Gafford.) He also found that the panels significantly reduce air temperatures, which would benefit farmworkers tending to the plants. For instance, he’s grown salsa ingredients-cilantro, peppers, and tomatoes-and found that they grow just as well, if not better, under solar panels than in the open. “By growing these crops in the shade of solar arrays, we reduce the amount of that intense sunlight that bakes off the water and stresses out the plant.” Barron-Gafford is among the recipients of a new $10 million grant from the USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture to research agrivoltaics for different regions, crops, and climates.īarron-Gafford has been running experiments to quantify several variables-like growth, water use, and energy production-to determine which crops might benefit most. “It is a rare win-win-win,” says Greg Barron-Gafford, an earth system scientist at University of Arizona who’s studying agrivoltaics. Plus, plants “sweat,” which cools the panels overhead and boosts their efficiency. Shading those crops means they will require less water, which rapidly evaporates in an open field. Yes, plants need sunlight, but some need less than others, and indeed get stressed by too many photons. And space doesn’t get much more open than on a farm: Why not stick a solar array in a field and plant crops underneath? It’s a new scientific (and literal) field known as agrivoltaics-agriculture plus photovoltaics-and it’s not as counterintuitive as it might seem. Airports are filling up their open space with sun-eaters. Now scientists are thinking about how to cover canals with them, reducing evaporation while generating power. If humanity’s going to stave off the worst of climate change, people will need to get creative about where they put solar panels. “We decided to go about this in terms of needing to figure out how to make more money for land that we thought should be doing more,” Kominek says. It’s also been generating enough electricity to power 300 homes. ![]() The farm is growing a huge array of crops underneath them-carrots, kale, tomatoes, garlic, beets, radishes, lettuce, and more. In Jack's Solar Garden in Boulder County, Colorado, owner Byron Kominek has covered 4 of his 24 acres with solar panels.
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