This month, the Kalamazoo Climate Crisis Coalition hosted a Zoom event on agrivoltaics as part of its climate conversations series. Agrivoltaics is agriculture that takes place underneath or near solar panels.
Presenter Charles Gould of the Michigan State University Extension said the introduction of solar fields in Michigan could create more land for other uses like sheep farming, which needs large amounts of grazing space.
Gould spoke about a Michigan sheep farmer he met who had more demand than he could supply for halal lamb and mutton, so he utilized solar fields to graze larger flocks.
“His success was so profound that that he changed his business plan to focus on solar grazing. And he's in negotiations right now with a solar developer that has an additional 1,000 acres that he wants to graze,” Gould said.
Gould said he also spoke with a Michigan restaurant about why they didn’t serve Michigan lamb.
“Volume, quantity and price,” Gould said. “We could address all of those issues if we had the land that solar projects afford us and make that land available to sheep producers to graze.”
There are also many crops that can be grown under solar panels, especially crops that can grow in higher shade like broccoli and leafy greens.
“If you look at those crops, we grow every single one of those crops here in Michigan,” Gould said. “And we can grow these crops because of the Great Lakes. The effect of the Great Lakes makes it so we can grow crops that other states can't, especially those that are surrounding us.”
Gould also spoke about initiatives in Michigan to promote agrivoltaics in the sector of fruit production, like a research initiative being funded by the Michigan Fruit Tree Commission. He showed photo examples of solar panels that were designed to fit with a farmer’s existing infrastructure rather than creating new space.
“It’s a farmer-first approach rather than the solar developer coming in and saying, you're going to have to grow fruit trees in my system. And I love that concept and that's the way it should be,” Gould said.
The event also featured other presenters like Bryon Kominek, executive director of the Colorado Agrivoltaic Learning Center.
“Solar is coming to farmland — I’m sorry to say whether you like it or not. It's going to be required in many areas if we want to power more of our areas by clean energy,” Kominek said.
Kominek and Gould spoke about a number of topics in the field of agrivoltaics, including how to make the sector more accessible for farmers.
“This is one of the things that we've really got to have a serious discussion about in Michigan, is how do we move legitimate agricultural tech projects forward,” Gould said. “Provide the opportunities for farmers to farm the ground, but yet produce the needed electricity that we need here in Michigan.”
