Peter Schmitt is US Solar’s director of project development and said the company has been experimenting with other types of agrivoltaics for years. All but one of the company’s solar fields have native prairie and pollinator habitats under the rows of panels or are used by local shepherds as pasture for flocks of sheep.
“Whether it’s pollinators, whether it’s grazing, whether it’s crop production, something has to happen to that land. We’re not going to leave it fallow,” Schmitt said.
The pilot at The Food Group is the company’s first agrivoltaics experiment with crop production. Schmitt said that all the “soft cost” work that went into figuring out how to set up this project will pay off as they expand agrivoltaics in their solar arrays across the country — and it could improve the relationship between solar companies and rural towns.
“As solar becomes more common in agricultural communities that doesn’t necessarily…
