Survey Finds 70% Of US Farmers Are Open To Massive-Scale Photo voltaic On Farmland

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If large-scale photo voltaic initiatives can enable for the continued use of their land for agricultural manufacturing, 70% of US farmers are open to the concept of photo voltaic developments on their farmland, in keeping with the outcomes of a brand new survey from the Photo voltaic and Storage Industries Institute. The survey, which sought to measure the opinions about photo voltaic on farmland from tons of of farmers and photo voltaic builders, plus some utility stakeholders, is the primary of its sort within the US, and was used to construct a brand new report laying out among the limitations to new agrivoltaic initiatives.

The report is one half of a bigger challenge which is being funded by the US DOE Foundational Agrivoltaic Analysis for Megawatt Scale (FARMS) program, with the intention of learning current limitations to agrivoltaics after which growing suggestions to beat them, as whereas there are a rising variety of small agrivoltaics initiatives, solely a few tenth of large-scale photo voltaic initiatives at present implement agrivoltaics of their design, per NREL.

In response to the report “Understanding Limitations to Agrivoltaics: A Survey Method,” as much as 70% of farmers are open to large-scale photo voltaic on farmland, so long as dual-use or an agrivoltaic strategy is included within the design of these methods. This strategy would allow the farmers to get supplementary earnings from photo voltaic, whereas nonetheless with the ability to proceed their farming operations round and below the photo voltaic array.

“This report shines a brilliant highlight on the truth that farmers and ranchers can play a big position in serving to us hold the lights on with clear power. Agrivoltaics stay one of many smartest methods for farmers, huge and small, to take care of their operations whereas rushing up clear power deployment on the similar time. This report confirms that, below the best circumstances farmers and photo voltaic builders wish to work collectively, and our job now’s to ship the instruments and sources they should make that course of simpler.” — Abigail Ross Hopper, president and CEO of the Photo voltaic Power Industries Affiliation

Nonetheless, the report additionally discovered that farmers have been “much more more likely to help distributed photo voltaic initiatives on farm property,” equivalent to smaller-scale photo voltaic arrays that might be used “to immediately energy the farm operations,” whereas lower than half of the farmers who responded to the survey can be in favor of utility-scale photo voltaic initiatives on farmland. Greater than 78% of these respondents “have been “considerably” or “very” involved with utility-scale photo voltaic impacts on farmland worth and entry, whereas 77% had some degree of concern round utility-scale photo voltaic impacts on farmland preservation.” Moreover, 42% mentioned they have been “very involved” about utility-scale photo voltaic’s impacts on farm productiveness, and 40% have been very involved about impacts on soil high quality.

“The analysis reveals most farmers are interested by exploring photo voltaic, offered that they’ve sufficient data to make good enterprise selections and proceed farming. With the survey full, we are going to develop case research on the components that affect challenge economics and outcomes in agrivoltaic initiatives, serving to photo voltaic builders and farmers overcome the continued challenges they face.” — David Gahl, Photo voltaic and Storage Industries Institute Govt Director

The report additionally acknowledged that though 30% of the farmers responding to the survey have been “constantly opposed large-scale photo voltaic below any situation,” they have been additionally “much less more likely to be aware of agrivoltaic design ideas,” which factors to the need for added schooling about agrivoltaics with a purpose to improve help for photo voltaic improvement on farmland.

From the angle of the photo voltaic builders surveyed, virtually half of them mentioned they “consider that photo voltaic on farmland will make up a majority of their future enterprise alternatives,” and a few 80% of photo voltaic builders acknowledged that they plan to incorporate agrivoltaics methods of their initiatives sooner or later. Nonetheless, “sure methods, equivalent to elevating panels to permit for farm tools entry, are nonetheless seen as troublesome to implement” by a big majority, and “system designs that usually require the elevation of photo voltaic panels past typical heights are seen as a lot more durable” by photo voltaic builders. One potential path for mitigating these issues is a rise in availability of “specialised {hardware} for agrivoltaics installations,” which can come about by way of better demand for agrivoltaics driving an “elevated provide of agrvivoltaic-specific {hardware} options and finally, better provider competitors and decrease costs.”

There’s rather a lot to unpack about photo voltaic on farmland within the new 64-page report from the Photo voltaic and Storage Industries Institute, so for those who’re interested by agrivoltaics as a key factor of a clear power future, you’ll be able to obtain it right here: “Understanding Limitations to Agrivoltaics: A Survey Method.“