With agrivoltaics, solar farms can add wheat, sheep as new cash crops
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Kunekune pigs and solar panels at the Mammoth North Solar Project in Indiana.
Source: Doral Renewables LLC.
By: Kirsten Errick
Solar energy developers are increasingly looking to open their facilities to another type of farming: crops and livestock.
Agrivoltaics, the dual use of land for solar energy generation and agricultural production, is getting more attention, according to a July 2024 report released by the Solar and Storage Industries Institute. More than 70% of farmers are open to large-scale solar projects on their properties if system designs allow for continued agricultural production, according to the report.
About 10 GW of US solar, or 7.7% of the fleet, is agrivoltaics, according to US National Renewable Energy Laboratory's InSPIRE data on the Open Energy Information platform.
"Instead of viewing solar development and farming as competing land uses, agrivoltaics basically will integrate them to create synergies between both," Ed Baptista, vice president of development and agrivoltaics at private developer Doral Renewables LLC, told Platts, part of S&P Global Commodity Insights.
Solar is often developed on land that could also be used for farming, creating tension between the agricultural and energy commodities. The American Farmland Trust estimated that 83% of new solar development could occur on agricultural land.
However, solar facilities can be modified to enable agrivoltaics, increasing the overall yield from the site.
For example, at Doral Renewables' 400-MW Mammoth North Solar Project in Starke County, Indiana, the site's vegetation management is done by sheep grazing.
"In that project, we have 1,000 sheep already in the area, doing some sheep grazing, and the plan is to increase that amount maybe up to 4,000 in two or three years," Baptista said, adding that the site, in the northwestern part of the state, is also being used for hay production.
“Everybody wants to crack that code, including the federal government, because a lot of public lands are grazed by ranchers,” Bullock-Sieger said, explaining that solar can help reduce the number of animals dying from heat stress because of the shade from solar panels. ”
Besides sheep, animals such as Kunekune pigs — which do not root or damage the solar installation — and chickens can be part of agrivoltaics. Cattle can also be used, but there are some challenges.
"The bottom line is that to be successful, the combination of the two has to be more productive than doing the two separately. If it's not more productive, then it just doesn't make sense," Dave Specca, assistant director of the Rutgers EcoComplex Clean Energy Innovation Center at Rutgers University and Rutgers Agrivoltaics Program Lead, told Platts.
Cattle still on the frontier
Cattle is the next frontier, according to Lucy Bullock-Sieger, vice president of strategy at Lightstar Renewables LLC, a Boston-based community solar developer, and chair of the Solar and Farming Association, an agrivoltaics advocacy group.
"Everybody wants to crack that code, including the federal government, because a lot of public lands are grazed by ranchers," Bullock-Sieger said, explaining that solar can help reduce the number of animals dying from heat stress because of the shade from solar panels.
Bullock-Sieger explained that rotational grazing for cattle means that solar panels need to be raised from the normal 1-3 feet above ground to 6-8 feet to prevent cattle from interacting with the panels. The panels also tabletop, meaning they are flat at solar noon in the area where the cattle are grazing.
"So, they'll graze this area for seven days, so it will be tabletop for seven days," Bullock-Sieger said. "But the rest of the array is tracking this and absorbing electrons the same way it would anyway."
FULL ARTICLE HERE: https://www.spglobal.com/market-intelligence/en/news-insights/articles/2025/4/with-agrivoltaics-solar-farms-can-add-wheat-sheep-as-new-cash-crops-88166096
Contact Meghan Welborn, Director of Marketing & PR for press inquires and speaking enagagements for the Lightstar team.