I have spoken often about the unwarranted concern over minuscule farmland loss to solar arrays, until I realized it really wasn’t about the land, it was about changing how we get electricity.
Far more solar panels are being installed somewhere other than cornfields. Numbers for rooftop solar surprised many experts in the last year.
The resistance to renewable energy is increasing, which is typical for disruptive technologies once they gain too much momentum to be dismissed outright. Solar energy is ever more strongly linked to electric vehicles, as well, which compounds the unease many feel about the future.
Nonetheless, there are efforts to mitigate this non-existent farmland loss problem. One of these is agrivoltaics – combining agriculture with solar installations. This effort strikes me as more curiosity than breakthrough.
One common solution to farmland installations is grazing underneath the panels. The combination works for pastured sheep and cattle, especially although I would never underestimate the ability of cows to rub any post loose. As extreme heat becomes more common, shade becomes more valuable for pastured livestock.
Another mixture of solar and ag that caught my attention was this intercropping experiment. The first thing I noticed were the solar panels were fixed vertically, which would drastically lower electrical output – at my latitude, anyway.
This photo though is from Alberta, Canada, where the sun hits at a much lower angle, decreasing the efficiency loss enough to make something like this idea less unthinkable.
Still, as an older farmer whose ability to operate a million-dollar combine safely in huge open fields is a subject of continuing discussion on our farm, the idea of driving accurately between expensive solar arrays, even with amazing electronic assistance, is something better left to Canadians, perhaps.
