This month TWW, local officials, and Colorado agriculture leaders had the opportunity to tour Jack’s Solar Garden in Longmont, CO. Jack’s Solar Garden is a pioneer in agrivoltaics, which is the co-locating of solar panels with beneficial agriculture. Jack’s is the largest commercial research site for agrivoltaics in the United States. Jack’s partners with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Colorado State University, and the University of Arizona to conduct a variety of research on the feasibility and best practices for agrivoltaics and then disseminates that information to farmers interested in adopting the practice. With land usage for solar production expected to increase rapidly over the next several decades, especially in rural communities, agrivoltaics could allow for farmers to use their land for both energy and food production.
Jack’s is showing that agrivoltaics can provide a variety of benefits to farmers and landowners including water conservation, higher crop yields, improved soil quality, crop protection and increased revenue from land with dual uses. Research is showing that the solar panels can create microclimates under the panels which support increased crop yields for certain plants and use less water, with some crops needing almost half the traditional amount of water required.
Learn more in this video below from Byron Kominek, the owner and founder of Jack’s Solar Garden.