Agrivoltaics: Not Just Greenwashing

Am I on the Right Track?

I am forever concerned about ensuring that what I do is for the better, not the worse. It took me a long time to embrace solar energy, despite my extensive history in energy and renewables. Grasping the impacts, economic benefits, and energy efficiency figures was a struggle. When I entered the solar industry, it was still heavily dependent on policy and subsidies. This was rapidly changing, and my mental map of the world continued to tick off locations where solar hit grid parity. Canada was slow to get there, but eventually, it hit, and with that, a rush of new opportunities in Alberta emerged. Solar development not seen since the early Feed-in Tariff days in Ontario under the now-cancelled Green Energy Act began to take shape.

Just as quickly as the private solar market grew into a gold rush, it hit a wall, much like Ontario. The issue was that the sector became a victim of its own success. Alberta was not ready on various fronts for what came at them. The economic and grid system fundamentals aligned so well that, despite no policy in place to procure, international developers lined up to develop and acquire projects to sell to private markets. These markets were happy to lock in solar power purchase agreements in gas-heavy but gas market-exposed electrical markets in Alberta.

Fast forward, and cue the opposition. Opposing forces throughout the province grew louder, especially in rural areas. This opposition became strong enough to give the ruling party the political capital needed to first place a halt and subsequently impose a moratorium on new solar projects on agricultural land... unless it was agrivoltaics.

This path was similar to Ontario's. The Green Energy Act sought to offset a global financial meltdown and lead in new utility-scale solar (and wind), at a time when it was a very small industry. Programs were created to attract manufacturing investment and reward those manufacturers with a form of (later overturned by the WTO) preferred treatment for made-in-Ontario products. This ensured a captive market and created a market with a Feed-in Tariff that was sufficiently rewarding to ignite rapid deployment of early utility-scale solar installations.

To ensure rapid deployment, the government also streamlined approvals and removed local engagement and setback requirements. It did not take long for opposition to grow and ultimately help take down a government and cancel the Green Energy Act, all but killing the solar development and local manufacturing industries in Canada.

Times Change

Fast forward, other jurisdictions picked up the ball and continued to press on the pedal and deploy gigawatts of solar. In doing so, we've seen the rise of Chinese manufacturing. China dominates the supply chain through scale and ongoing subsidy. But as a result, the globe has benefitted from ultra-cheap and more efficient solar modules. Countries break records monthly, and systems and installations have improved to the point where solar is the lowest-cost new energy (yes, it is an intermittent product... I am a hydro person and well-versed in the negatives). But this is cheap power, and industry has always been founded around the next cheapest source of energy, be it people, migrating herds, productive farmland, falling water, whale oil, accessible coal, burbling oil, and now suitably sited solar...

Solar has always been held to a higher standard. The opposition needs to be commended for their work, tripping up the industry in its early days and on to today. Solar provides clean energy. It has a 2 to 3-year energy payback. Similar carbon payback. Provides on-peak power throughout the day. Comes in below other new energy sources. Can be planned and built in a matter of a few years. Is replicable. Is modular by its own equipment description. Is infinitely scalable. Has the lowest year-to-year resource risk. Predictable. Bankable. Lowest profile of any energy source. Provides safe havens for pollinators. But... there needs to be more... thanks, opposition.

What More?

Agrivoltaics. Solar has met a point in its lifecycle where its costs are now so low that it can de-optimize itself to catch even more ESG/stakeholder/political/environmental/social/local/rural/brownie points.

Agrivoltaics is a term that throws old solar to the curb (sorry, solar). Solar has become a bad word, and rather than keep fighting the good fight (and solar is in a good and just fight... to be clear), agrivoltaics is something different. Groups, including @agrivoltaicscanada.ca, are pushing to take this rural energy concept to the next level. Agrivoltaics is a way to ensure farmland and farming practices do both: generate clean energy and ensure agricultural continuity. Ensuring meaningful agricultural practices continue is incredibly important to those pushing for this, and despite solar being good, the outputs of agrivoltaics are just that much greater.

Agrivoltaics can include growing shade-tolerant crops under arrays, interspersing large-scale solar with large tractor farming between and under raised arrays, and grazing sheep in and around conventionally oriented or stilted arrays for larger animals such as cattle. Guess what? Animals like shade. Animals like eating cool-grown grass, and grass likes microclimates and reduced transpiration due to the cooling from shading... see where we are going with this? Agriculture benefits. Sheep love the shade. Sheep lamb in the shade. Weaning lambs with their mothers in the shade translates into bigger lambs faster. Agrivoltaics, when it comes to sheep, are really just sophisticated sheep shades that just so happen to get plugged in to generate competitive power that can also lower the cost burden on the broader regional rate base. And when sheep are grazing, they are providing a service. Farmers have access to free hay but provide a vegetation management service to solar system operators. The grass needs to be maintained, like any well-managed property. Keeping the vegetation down prevents weed growth, prevents shading on the solar array which affects generation, keeps ticks at bay (an experience documented by one Ontario operator), and keeps insurers happy, who want to ensure any fire hazards originating in and out of the array are addressed. So, grazers making more money and growing better, bigger lambs... guess what that does? Encourages the growth of herds. In Texas, the sheep herd has grown by 3x. Ontario is ripe for this very same opportunity... but... policy.

Green Energy Act Hangover

The problems with the act were many. One rural/farming issue that stands out was the idea of taking good farmland out and making it industrial solar. In fact, some operators lobbied to allow for their operations to have sheep in the early days. However, most of the old projects found themselves struggling to invest in industrial-scale installation plans, stormwater management plans, large-scale fencing, piling, and grading matters. Thankfully, the last decade has seen great strides that just so happen to have benefitted the case for agrivoltaics. As these projects went through their Darwinian evolution, methods went from grading projects with little regard for soil, to as little grading as possible. Configurations that have also helped with water retention and management. Configurations that have also preserved topsoil and reduced disturbance. Seeding was done to halt soil erosion quickly. Hydroseeding is a favored method. Now, seeding is done with more appropriate pasture mixes that help grazers and above and below-ground species of critters. Fencing is now being optimized to not just keep the two-legged animals out and safe but also predators at bay. Burying fences below the soil and selecting fencing to prevent pushing through over time are now considerations. Fencing and designing for future paddocking to support sophisticated grazing is also becoming commonplace. This keeps grazing costs down and ensures sheep can better maintain pasture consistently, versus overgrazing and undergrazing areas. Freshwater management for moving water about and collecting water off of arrays are all part of the new solar... as I said... agrivoltaics. Agrivoltaics is farmer-first solar. It does not occupy the skyline for miles around. It is hosted by willing hosts. It ensures farming legacies continue. It provides reliable revenue streams for the next generation by way of grazing services and electrical revenues and/or agrivoltaic land leases.

Because of the pushback, popular legislation was introduced ensuring municipalities had a say in the energy projects going forward. Agrivoltaics threads that needle. Farmland is already impacted land. The net environmental benefits of grazing are positive: carbon and nutrient sequestration, reduction in tilling and soil degradation and runoff, reduction in chemical fertilizers and pesticides. These provide potential for new revenues for municipalities and meet various energy commitments that many Canadian regions have committed to. Environmentally, pollinators benefit, and baselining before projects commence ensures that farmland is not forever lost, as has been an anti-solar position, but rather, the farmland is saved as farmland, preserved, and banked if and when there is a critical need at some far future date to re-establish differing farming practices on the lands. In the meantime, these systems act as a financial foundation to support farm viability in a world where commodities continue to see downward pressures on net operating profits and prime agricultural economic areas continue to erode as full-timers move to off-farm work and cash crop leasing becomes the only way to ensure farming on lands no longer run by the owning families.

So, there are a few reasons why agrivoltaics is appealing and worth a look. Once you scratch the surface, it is hard to unsee the various great benefits of agrivoltaics and realize this is not a threat to farmland but a genuine boon to a new kind of farming generation. Sheep farmers can lay claim to not only growing the flock to meet the growing domestic need for sheep but can rest comfortably knowing they are supporting the most efficient way to grow usable energy from agriculture.

Mike Carter

First Green Energy Ltd. 

Agrivoltaics Canada