Tag Archive for: solargrazing

Solar grazing helps farmers feed their flocks while the expanding solar industry provides more clean energy to the grid.

Under a Texas sun, agrivoltaics offer farmers a new way to make money

At the Azure Sky solar and storage project in Haskell County, Tex., 700,000 photovoltaic panels stretch in uniform rows across the desert landscape, shimmering under a relentless summer sun. Beneath the panels, hundreds of Dorper sheep graze on Bermuda and Johnson grasses, driven there by two border collies named Bucky and Johnny.

The sheep belong to Chad Raines, owner of Key Farms in Lamesa, Tex., and they are part of a new initiative called solar grazing. In addition to providing a low cost, eco-friendly mowing service to energy companies, Raines manages a solar site that provides an estimated 586 gigawatts annually to the booming Texas solar industry.

“We still farm and do everything we used to,” said Raines, “except underneath solar panels.”

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Source: The Washington Post

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‘Solar grazing’ around panels is providing a lifeline to the US shepherding sector as clean energy expands.

How sheep keep solar farms out of the shade

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Stung by high fuel costs and a labor squeeze, some clean energy companies are turning to an unlikely ally — flocks of sheep — to keep their solar panels out of the shade.

The nascent practice, known as solar grazing, is so far used on only a tiny sliver of the expansive arrays of panels that are increasingly dotting rural America. But with significant financial benefits to both the renewable energy industry and the struggling mutton sector, more solar sites in the US are expected to start swapping lawnmowers for lambs.

The US solar industry has been growing rapidly: The country is expected to break solar-construction records this year by adding more than 32 gigawatts of capacity, according to a BloombergNEF outlook. That’s enough to power more than 25 million homes. At the same time, there are concerns there won’t be enough cropland to feed a growing world population, especially if acreage is covered by buildings, roads or photovoltaic installations instead.

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Source: Bloomberg

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