Largest Farm to Grow Crops Under Solar Panels Proves To Be A Bumper Crop For Agrivoltaic Land Use::undefined
Start putting solar canopies over all these goddamn mostly empty parking lots we have everywhere. Completely wasted space otherwise and it’d provide some cover from the rain for people coming and going from their cars.
Plus you’d lower the temperature of the vehicles, reducing air conditioning and decreasing fuel/battery use, which would further decrease emissions
No one ever brings this up, but the heat island effect might be diminished? Not sure how the math works out there.
Possibly? But either way, cooling the panels will increase their service life with a slight net increase in output as well. It should reduce the heating of parking lots by as much of the power it makes.
Or abandon the min parking reqs so developers can build something else there. But also solar panels where we actually need parking space
Yeah, build something other than a parking lot, and put a solar panel on top of that! 🧠
Most of those minimum parking requirements are based on bullshit anyways.
This is one that seriously gets me as to why we don’t do this more, it would make so much sense. Obvious benefits are power generation, but also when you consider, it would significantly reduce how scorching hot large carparks get in the sun, depending on the style of the solar canopy being built it could also massively reduce the amount of water flow onto the ground reducing some wear on the tarmac in addition to some hazards.
Also for places like the UK where we typically don’t have huge amounts/extended periods of snow, as long as the canopy is sufficiently designed for the additional weight, you could ameliorate the need to salt the car parks, once again increasing the life of the tarmac.
It would also keep people’s cars much cooler, in the sun, and make things generally a lot cooler below the canopy.
“Its too hard to maintain.”
“What if someone hits the pole holding up the panels?”
“It costs more than clear cutting a forest to put the panels in.” (True story)
Lots of bullshit reason.
That’s where a properly functioning government would be able to step in. Parking lot taxes are going up x%, but if you install solar panels, you get an x% tax break.
That and add a steep tax for single purpose solar fields.
It’s not that it’s too hard to maintain, but that in order to make sense it would have to be cheaper than building and maintaining the solar panels on some larger and less valuable patch of land 30 minutes out of town.
There are very few land uses more worthless than a surface parking lot.
I work in municipal development.
If it costs a quarter-penny more to build a better product, a developer will do anything they can to avoid it.
I’ve had them flip out and demand to the City Manager that I be fired because they had to paint parking stripes. More than once.
This seems to largely be a “retelling” of an original story from NPR from 2021. The original has significantly more information from actually interviewing the owner of the project.
Agro-solar is a win win. Solar is the fastest and the most economic energy to deploy.
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Yields with solar are crop dependent. Some crops like berries yield more with solar panel cover.
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The combination has significantly higher yield than the respective reductions though. A farmer applying it will make less money on farming, but much more money in total. But given teh increase in temperatures and droughts due to climate change, the combination can secure yields, as it keeps plants from getting sunburnt and drying out as fast.
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Investing in solar energy almost always pays off in the short term
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Agrivoltaics is the combined use of solar panels and agriculture under the panels that together use less energy and produce more crops. It can also provide shade for livestock.
I guess it would depend on the crops, but wouldn’t it somewhat limit the use of farming equipment. I assume you’re not going to fit a tractor in the field with those panels and supports.
It depends on the type of supporting structure for the panels. In Germany a company built it tall enough to use their normal farm equipment: Image
I’ve seen pictures of massive tractors pulling several ploughs side by side in the US, that would most likely not work with this, but there are plenty of solutions for anything on a slightly smaller scale.
The original story from NPR says that they’re able to drive their tractor between the panels. It’s interesting that the project could essentially be described as an end run around a historic designation though. They put 1.2 MW of solar up, and from reading between the lines it seems that’s how they’re making money, the farming seems to be much more of a side thing that they’re required to do for historic reasons.
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It’s usually permanent pasture grazing that’s mixed with solar panels. Take low value land that doesn’t support the use of large equipment, add value with panels and get free shade for livestock.
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There’s lots of startups making smaller agile AI powered electric robotics for agriculture. Would pair well with a farm like this.
As this is not mentioned, is it possible to extend the system by collecting rainwater falling on solar panels ?
The rainwater would fall off the slanted panels and fall onto the plants.
What is you installed a gutter? And made the down pipe go into a bucket
Then the plants would have no water and die.
Sure you could do that, but… why?
To more evenly distribute the collected rainfall rather than to water just the plants sitting under the edge of each solar row? Or to use the rainfall for other farmy things?
the water should distribute itself evenly enough on most soils, but yes you could retrofit it with some distribution system.
Sure
This is so cool!
Possibly a stupid question, but is there anything toxic in the solar panels or their infrastructure that could contaminate the plants or soil below? Particularly if the panels were damaged in, say, extreme weather, but also as a result of general wear and tear. I’m thinking heavy metal dust, carcinogenic liquid components, that sort of thing. As per the article this seems like it could be a good land use pairing, but not if it renders the soil unfit for agriculture due to a buildup of contamination.
Not an expert, but my gut reaction is not really. The panels themselves are largely glass, aluminum and silicon, with fairly small amounts of doping agents. There are electronics but since they’re outside they’re largely encased in something, wiring which would be plastic and copper or possibly aluminum, and then the structure itself which is going to be steel and concrete.
Solar panels are significantly more sturdy than one would think given they are essentially a giant piece of glass. They’re usually rated to 12mm hail or more, which would normally absolutely devastate a crop. They don’t really go bad either they just become less efficient over time. There’s no moving parts to wear, no liquids, and in some designs very little in the way of electronics to go bad.
Essentially, I wouldn’t be surprised if there would be more harmful contamination from a diesel tractor driving around in the field or from a nearby coal power plant than from any kind of solar array as long as it didn’t have like, lead legs or something.
That being said, these kind of projects have been shown a lot but they’re unlikely to be used in most large scale farming - they usually interfere with any machines used to plant or harvest, and are only really well suited to a few crops. Parking lots are a much easier target for this type of solar project.
Parking lots or at least literally any public space that still refuses to become a third space or plant enough native plants/trees.
most electronics have lead, i think thatd be the main thing .
Not really. Not for the last 20 years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restriction_of_Hazardous_Substances_Directive
I’ve heard of the panels burning down making fhe field unsafe for use in the future
That’s not a thing.
Do you have any more information on this? A quick search largely just shows results about how firefighters need to be careful since the panels can look bad but still be producing voltage and are a shock hazard.
It’s probably a fair point - any fire there is now going to be burning a while load of artificial materials instead (as well as) plants. I could see that being an issue if there was a big fire. (Much larger cost to the farmer too!)
Silicon doesn’t burn, and even if it did, it’s literally just purified sand. The other materials in silicon solar cells are either only found in trace amounts, or also found naturally in soil, i.e. aluminum.
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It works really well, so how is it a dodge? Is watering crops also a dodge?
It’s a dodge since the farm mentioned is historic farmland. They aren’t allowed to stop farming and just put up solar.
When Kominek approached Boulder County regulators about putting up solar panels, they initially told him no, his land was designated as historic farmland.
In Kominek’s case, he literally bet the farm in order to finance the roughly $2 million solar arrays.
“We had to put up our farm as collateral as well as the solar array as collateral to the bank,” he says. “If this doesn’t work, we lose the farm.”
From: Original NPR story
If anything it seems like a clever way around zoning. Reading between the lines it seems they view the crops as kind of a bonus, not half the point like the original article makes it seem.
The plants provide a cooling effect, which makes solar more efficient. At the same time, plants are protected from hail and heavy rains. Water loss is reduced, as well. The shade isn’t necessarily a downside, as some plants prefer it.
You mean the parking we should get rid of because cars ruin cities? Nah.
