Gov. Jared Polis recently announced $500,000 in grants to seven projects demonstrating the use and benefits of agrivoltaics via the Colorado Department of Agriculture. Agrivoltaics is the coupling of agriculture with solar energy where the shade of the panels reduces evaporation and lowers the temperature of vegetation and livestock.
As the owner of the most well-known site for agrivoltaics in the country, Jack’s Solar Garden in Boulder County, I’m thrilled that Colorado is supporting projects that improve land stewardship within solar arrays.
Colorado isn’t alone in such efforts. The state of Washington budgeted $10.7 million over a few years to provide grants and technical assistance for agrivoltaic projects. New Jersey put $2 million toward building research and demonstration agrivoltaic systems on a state agricultural experiment station.
Two pieces of bipartisan federal legislation are under consideration to spur on agrivoltaics. One would have the USDA fund $15 million in agrivoltaics research annually. The other would direct the USDA to aid renewable energy projects that co-prioritize land stewardship.
Overseas, the European Commission recently approved Italy’s agrivoltaics incentive program of $1.84 billion to deploy 1 gigawatt of agrivoltaic systems, enough for about 750,000 homes. This program would cover up to 40% of an agrivoltaic project’s total cost. The French are defining national standard practices to build agrivoltaic projects as the country rushes to install more solar capacity. In India, as in a handful of other countries, agrivoltaics associations are popping up to advance the installation of more solar projects while enabling access to community members to grow food. There’s even a World Agrivoltaics Conference happening here in Colorado this June.
So why all the attention on agrivoltaics? I believe we inherently want to see effective land use management no matter what activity is occurring on that land. Solar arrays that have desolate or underutilized land beneath them are what those who criticize solar developments point to as a reason for their opposition.
At our core, people have a negative reaction when we see barren and depleted lands no matter where we are. The benefit of choosing to improve land stewardship in solar arrays comes at the wonderful confluence of solar investment dollars, climate-adaptive microclimates, and giving access to farmers/ranchers to keep lands healthy and active.
On the investment dollars, the U.S. Energy Information Agency is showing that 1.3 GW of solar energy will become operational in Colorado in 2024 — increasing our solar capacity by 68% in one year. Assuming $1.10 of investment per watt of installed solar capacity, that’s over $1.4 billion. That’s a significant chunk of change being invested in upward of 10,000 acres of land across Colorado.
Regarding climate-adaptive microclimates, our colleagues at Colorado State University — Dr. Alan Knapp and PhD candidate Matthew Sturchio — have found that smooth brome grass (a species used for hay production in Colorado) is not as light limited as it is moisture limited. This means, some shade on cool season grasses may not diminish yields as significantly as you might think. Similar effects can be seen in leafy greens and herbs grown at Jack’s Solar Garden, which provide better yields in the partial shade of our solar array likely due to decreased average daily temperatures. These benefits will become more pronounced as our summers get hotter and our lands get drier.
The societal opportunity that agrivoltaics presents is providing land access to those who can make use of it to feed Colorado families. All sorts of livestock are currently managed in solar arrays around the world including sheep, ducks and chickens, while various crops can be grown therein depending on the system design and soil health beneath the solar panels.
Agrivoltaics is a chance to facilitate land access to people who can’t afford it, to create livelihoods growing local food, and to keep our lands healthy and functional, all while generating the clean energy we need.
I’m proud of Colorado’s legislative progress on agrivoltaics, and I hope to see more soon. Our legislature’s next steps need to create solar installation protocols that don’t compact or degrade our lands and to invest in developments that integrate cattle into solar arrays on rangeland. And it would be great for Gov. Polis’ team to urge the solar industry to invest in building projects that incorporate diverse agricultural activities into solar arrays.
This water-land-energy-food nexus is the crux of agrivoltaics. Let’s keep investing in agrivoltaics to accelerate the clean energy transition.
Byron Kominek lives in unincorporated Boulder County and is the owner of Jack’s Solar Garden and the executive director of the Colorado Agrivoltaic Learning Center.
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