Solar burgers: How agrivoltaics is marrying food production with green energy

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CALGARY — Jason Bradley has spent 20 years of his career as a farm manager at a 50,000-acre grazing operation in west-central Alberta, so he understands why people react skeptically to the idea of ​​raising a herd of cattle on a solar-powered farm.

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“The first thing people think is: ‘You can’t put cattle on (a solar farm).’ They’ll rub up against the panels and destroy them,” Bradley said.

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But as CEO of Calgary-based Sun Cycle Farms, Bradley believes the doubters have already been proven wrong. And this fall, Sun Cycle ran a pilot project grazing livestock on a grid-connected solar farm in southern Alberta — something Bradley said proves that livestock production and renewable energy can successfully coexist.

“It wasn’t just a matter of proving it to ourselves, I knew it could be done in an existing solar facility,” Bradley said.

“But we had to prove to the asset owner, to the insurance company, and even to investors looking at this, that this is part of the solution.”

Sun Cycle Farms is an agricultural company, part of a rapidly expanding field that aims to combine solar energy production with agricultural activities. Across North America, solar farm owners are increasingly deploying sheep and even pigs on their sites to keep out weeds and reduce the need for mowing around panels.

Researchers around the world are also looking into what types of crops can be grown in and around solar panels.

Contrary to what you might expect, many crops do better when shaded by large solar panels than in direct sunlight, said Joshua Pierce, a solar energy expert at Western University.

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“Most of the crops we grow outdoors typically get a lot of sun,” Pierce said.

“Under the solar panel, or next to it, you almost have a little protected environment. There’s not a lot of wind, you don’t have to worry about the cold, and it even helps keep the water in the soil a little bit more.”

Land use issues were less pressing when solar energy was in its infancy two decades ago because the nascent industry was so small.

But the rapid spread of renewable energy in recent years means that the physical footprint of solar energy can no longer be ignored. According to the Canadian Renewable Energy Association, there are 206 major solar projects producing energy across the country — some of which occupy thousands of acres of land.

As a result of the industry’s explosive growth, some rural residents have become frustrated with how quickly the landscape around them is changing, as well as the activity taking place on the ground.

“If you’re in a rural community that prides itself on farming and producing from the land, and then all of a sudden you have big financiers outside your community buying up large tracts of land and turning them into solar parks, you can get upset and concerned about that,” Pierce said.

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In Alberta, which has seen the most dramatic growth in solar energy across Canada in recent years, the provincial government recently introduced new regulations that prevent renewable energy facilities from being built on prime farmland unless developers can prove their projects can coexist with livestock and crops.

“Renewable energy is a double-edged sword, because we need to generate energy in our county, but we also need to keep good farmland intact,” said Jeff Shaw, chief administrative officer for the city of Cardston, which is currently collaborating with the city. Sun Cycle farms in a photovoltaic farming pilot project located on the edge of a southern Alberta community.

“We (the city) would like to be associated with a solution to that.”

Success in agricultural energy often requires flexible thinking. For example, goats have been tested on solar farms but have not been particularly successful due to their tendency to chew wires.

In its livestock pilot project, Sun Cycle used electric fencing to train cattle to stay away from solar panels. The company is also exploring the use of solar-powered collars – which would give cows a bit of a “signal” as a deterrent if they get too close – as well as using robotic tractors to safely weed and cut hay around the site. Without damaging the panels.

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While more research needs to be done before the coexistence of cows and solar panels becomes commonplace, Pearce said this type of project is key to ensuring the long-term sustainability of the renewable energy sector and the continued productivity of the agricultural sector.

“With agricultural PV, everyone wins — the landowner, the farmers, the solar developers, the community, the power grid. It’s just a good idea,” he said, adding that it’s only a matter of time before livestock grazing among renewable energy installations becomes commonplace.

“And then we’ll have solar burgers. It’ll be very nice.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 25, 2024.

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