Agrivoltaics And Community Solar Beat Fossil Fuels

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Two developments have emerged in recent times to help the US photo voltaic vitality business. One is agrivoltaics and the opposite is neighborhood photo voltaic. For probably the most half they’ve been working on separate tracks, however a raft of recent tasks in Massachusetts signifies that agrivoltaics and neighborhood photo voltaic are merging into a robust new super-trend that can shut the door on fossil-fueled energy vegetation as soon as and for all.

Agrivoltaics And Group Photo voltaic

Agrivoltaics represents a sea change within the growth technique for utility-scale rural photo voltaic tasks. Within the early 2000’s, photo voltaic builders most well-liked gravel or different low-maintenance floor cowl. Photo voltaic panels had been nonetheless comparatively costly again then. To chop prices, builders saved  racking programs as quick as potential and spent the naked minimal on floor preparation.

Now that the price of photo voltaic panels has plunged, photo voltaic builders have some room to spend money on various methods whereas nonetheless providing ratepayers the chance to scale back their utility payments. That has opened the door to agrivoltaics, wherein builders spend money on specialised racking programs and new solar technologies which might be designed to allow farming actions within the solar array.

Livestock grazing and pollinator habitats have dominated the agrivoltaic area to this point. Researchers are additionally compiling a data base that permits agrivoltaic arrays to broaden into food crops for humans (see extra solar-plus-farming background here).

In the meantime, the neighborhood photo voltaic motion has additionally been taking a ride-along with the falling value of photo voltaic vitality.

Group photo voltaic tasks present a method for everybody to help solar energy of their space. If ratepayers don’t have the chance or want to put in their very own photo voltaic panels, they will subscribe to a close-by neighborhood photo voltaic array. In previous years additionally they needed to pay a premium for photo voltaic entry, however now the everyday neighborhood photo voltaic subscriber is more likely to see their utility payments fall.

New Agrivoltaic Initiatives For Massachusetts, With A Group Photo voltaic Twist

Massachusetts was amongst one of many first states to come back throughout the CleanTechnica agrivoltaics radar again in 2019, when agricultural planners within the state went scouting for methods to maintain the state’s cranberry business.

By 2021 the cranberry farming angle was starting to draw curiosity with an help from the Massachusetts SMART solar incentive programalthough a hitch associated to the type of poles used to raise the photo voltaic panels slowed issues down. Within the meantime, the agrivoltaic motion has exploded all throughout the US with a whole bunch of dual-use photo voltaic tasks at the moment beneath method.

In Massachusetts, the SMART program continues to help new agrivoltaic tasks. The newest growth is a set of 5 new agrivoltaic tasks with a neighborhood photo voltaic ingredient, beneath the umbrella of the photo voltaic developer and licensed B Corp BlueWave. All collectively, the tasks could have a capability of just about 20 megawatts alongside a storage capability of just about 30 megawatt-hours.

“Each of the solar projects are uniquely designed to allow for uninterrupted farming operations beneath the solar arrays with sites featuring a varied selection of crops and pollinator-friendly livestock grazing operations,” BlueWave defined in a press launch on August 22.

The neighborhood photo voltaic ingredient is exemplified by Lowell Basic Hospital, which stepped as much as function an anchor companion for 2 tasks, in Palmer and Haverhill. The association commits the hospital to obtain half of the vitality vitality capability from the 2 tasks, leading to decrease utility payments. BlueWave additionally notes that the tasks present low-income residents with entry to low-cost clear vitality, with out having to pay up entrance for photo voltaic panels.

“As the solar farm generates electricity, utilities measure the amount produced and assign that energy a dollar value in the form of a solar credit, which is applied to subscribers’ monthly electricity bills, reducing what residents owe,” BlueWave explains.

Saving Cash, Serving to Farmers

The SunSmart Ames Community Solar Project close to the Ames Municipal Airport in Ames, Iowa, is one other good instance of the interaction between agrivoltaics and neighborhood photo voltaic tasks. Commissioned in 2020, the 10-acre photo voltaic array was initially developed just for electrical energy manufacturing. Earlier this yr the Ames Tribune famous that the challenge has recruited a neighborhood sheep farmer to graze his sheep on the web site. The fee-cutting measure eliminates carbon emissions from mowing tools whereas supporting a neighborhood agricultural enterprise.

Citing sheep proprietor Chad Steenhoek in a Metropolis of Ames press launch, the Tribune additionally teased out how strategic grazing may also help restore depleted soil.

“With targeted grazing by sheep, we’re able to eat the vegetation in a manner that stores more carbon in the ground,” Steenhoek explains. “By storing more carbon, we improve soil life in the soil. As the soil improves, that creates a better environment for grass. It’s a good cycle.”

How The Agrivoltaic Motion Can Transfer The Rural Photo voltaic Needle

Don’t simply take his phrase for it. Of their August 22 press launch, BlueWave notes that it really works with the farmland conservation efforts of the group American Farmland Trustwhich credit itself with launching the conservation agriculture motion. “Since our founding in 1980, AFT has helped permanently protect over 8 million acres of agricultural lands, advanced environmentally-sound farming practices on millions of additional acres and supported thousands of farm families,” the group explains.

Help from AFT comes at an important time for US the photo voltaic business, which is dealing with opposition to utility-scale solar projects in rural areas. A part of the argument towards rural photo voltaic is that vitality manufacturing is an inappropriate use of farmland and a nasty match for rural communities. Each of these points are undercut when farming can proceed and native ratepayers profit from decrease utility prices.

Regulate a neighborhood photo voltaic/agrivoltaic challenge known as Grafton Photo voltaic, positioned at Knowlton Farms in Grafton, Massachusetts. AFT describes the 2-megawatt photo voltaic plus storage challenge as a “living laboratory” to discover finest practices for dual-use farming, with photo voltaic panels elevated a minimal of 10.5 inches above the bottom. The array was additionally constructed with extra space between the rows of panels, to allow farm tools to move via.

Together with AFT and BlueWave, different stakeholders within the challenge embrace the worldwide vitality agency AES Company, the solar-plus-storage developer Borrego, the College of Massachusetts, and the main agrivoltaic providers supplier SolAg.

In a YouTube video about the projectAES signifies that its long-term curiosity entails balancing agricultural alternatives with the elevated value of supplies and development, so keep tuned for extra on that.

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Photograph (cropped): The US photo voltaic developer BlueWave has launched a set of 5 agrivoltaic tasks in Massachusetts, together with a community solar angle that advantages native ratepayers in addition to farmers (courtesy of BlueWave).