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When integrating renewable energy into an existing agricultural production system, its dual value can be mutually beneficial. But as an emerging industry, agrivoltaics projects present complex regulatory, environmental and societal challenges.

The hope for coexistence

Wythe County farmer Eric Crowgey was inspired by an article about grazing sheep under solar panels in the United Kingdom. His 600 head of hair sheep, 154-acre tract of sun-drenched cropland, plus proximity to electrical transmission infrastructure checked the boxes for a feasible agrivoltaic operation at Richdale Farms.

“It was a win-win,” he recalled. “I wanted to remain agricultural. And if we could get a solar lease payment and have meat production underneath the panels, what better way of meeting a clean-energy need, but also a meat need?”

He signed with a solar developer willing to integrate the array into the existing cropland, keeping the topsoil for forage production, with panels positioned high enough for grazing.

“In my humble mind, we would be the first community in Southwest Virginia powered by solar, which would provide energy for up to 4,500 homes,” Crowgey said. “Wytheville would be a clean-energy town!”

But his contract was bought out twice, with the third developer interpreting its terms differently. The topsoil was removed and buried, the land was graded, and the dream of coexistence between agriculture and renewable energy evaporated.

“Once topsoil is removed, that plan goes out the window,” said Martha Moore, Virginia Farm Bureau Federation senior vice president of governmental relations. “Prime farmland can be a blank canvas that makes it easy for utility-scale solar to ‘cannibalize’ as a candidate for easy development.”

Land availability impact

Solar lease payments and kilowattage royalties can be attractive to many farmland owners already burdened by rising input costs and labor shortages. Because of greenhouse gas regulations and increased energy demands, solar is projected to rise from 4% of the country’s total energy production to 45% by 2050, potentially requiring nearly 10.4 million acres of land in solar production—with 90% of projected development to be from utility-scale projects in rural communities, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.

New and beginning farmers motivated to produce the world’s food and fiber are competing with developers for the same land. Among them is Pittsylvania County young farmer Logan Mills, who is surrounded by the rapid rise of utility-scale solar.

“To the north, to the west, to the south, to the east—it’s all the way around us,” he said.

As of January 2021, there were 38 solar facilities generating greater than five megawatts in Virginia. These were mainly located in rural and lightly populated areas in the eastern and southern portions of the state, according to a 2021 analysis of utility-scale solar in Virginia by Aaron Berryhill, solar program manager for the Virginia Department of Energy.

Mills sees what’s occurring statewide—a dramatic market shift driven by greenhouse gas regulations and demand from data centers that is creating an immediate demand for solar energy, with much of the development occurring on farmland and in rural communities.

Once poised to add up to 300 acres of farmland to his operation, Mills is now searching for new expansion opportunities after being outbid by a solar developer. But fierce competition for farmland leaves little on the table.

“As a young farmer, it is very discouraging,” he lamented. “We all know the size and scale of farms is going to have to keep on expanding for us to keep on making a living, but there’s not enough land for all of us.”

Societal and environmental impacts of solar arrays also raise concern.

“As society expands and there’s a greater need for electricity, there’s a need to balance the impacts of any source of energy generation,” Berryhill noted.

Any form of energy generation is resource-intensive, he added.

The Virginia Clean Economy Act, signed into law in 2020, commits Virginia to generate electricity exclusively from carbon-free sources by 2050.

“To meet clean-energy goals, Virginia may ultimately need to dedicate hundreds of thousands of acres of land to renewable energy production to meet future electricity needs from carbon-free sources,” Berryhill wrote in his 2021 analysis.

Environmental and local impact

Potential environmental and social impacts are something researchers and policymakers are racing to get ahead of.

The challenges and opportunities that utility-scale solar presents in rural communities demonstrate the outsized role that local planning will have on Virginia’s renewable energy future, Berryhill wrote.

Local authority for utility-scale solar siting has been of ongoing interest in the General Assembly. VFBF’s farm advocates were recently successful in upholding local control—delaying legislation that wouldn’t require special conditional use permits for solar development and remove local decision-making.

Berryhill said Virginia is becoming increasingly dependent on renewable energy, with demand outpacing other states—primarily driven by a proliferation of data centers in Northern Virginia. However, a majority of development occurred in lower-income communities.

“People may consider there’s a tax revenue to the local government, but these are lower-income areas where most of their income is coming from working lands—whether it’s through forestry or agriculture,” he said. “By changing a significant land use, there certainly could be a potential impact to the local economy, and I think some people have started to question that and what exactly it is—a net positive or a net negative?”

It comes down to individual perspective, said VFBF working lands advocate Rachel Henley.

“If your focus is climate, reducing carbon emissions and getting to clean energy, that could mean you’re going to forego preserving forest and farmland and losing the carbon sequestration and ecological benefits they provide,” she said. “If you believe we need opportunities for food production and keeping our ecosystem balanced, you might not be sure about taking forest and farmland for solar.”

A feasible balance

The definition of agrivoltaics is still evolving.

“For me, agrivoltaics means dual-value systems that are not only synergistic, but also complementary,” said Robin White, Virginia Tech associate professor of ruminant nutrition and sustainable agriculture. “We’re still in a space we need broader agreement on what exactly that looks like in practice.

“I think of it as agriculture-first,” she continued. “Taking renewable energy and integrating it into an existing agricultural production system. Some solar industry folks actively engaging in these projects may be coming from a different lens, because their background is in utility-scale systems and they want to integrate agriculture into renewable energy systems.”

Legal and regulatory definitions of agrivoltaics have been proposed by various agencies, but the need for more user-centered agreement on the interpretation of definitions was identified at a recent agrivoltaics summit in Blacksburg. The event drew about 60 stakeholders—farmers, landowners, Virginia Cooperative Extension agents, contractors, utilities and solar developers—and identified a need for a state-focused network to enable discussion around agrivoltaics and to connect diverse stakeholders interested in feasibility.

“We hope that eventually a network will help build a community-inspired culture for agrivolatics in Virginia, and serve to help connect interested farmers and landowners with those developers practicing the state-of-the-art best practice, and enabling that integration with agriculture,” White said. “But we’re not quite there yet.”

Bad actors

Crowgey said his grandchildren will someday be encumbered with the 30-year solar lease.

“I’m going to have an industrial wasteland, a strip mine, for my grandchildren to inherit,” he said. “It was the Eric Crowgey retirement fund, and now it’s the Eric Crowgey nightmare. Think twice before drinking the Kool-Aid!”

Unfortunately, Crowgey is likely not alone in this experience, White said.

“This is a pretty classic challenge for early adopters,” she said. “Bad actors are always present in emerging industries because we don’t have a set of best management practices or standards that we know should be included in agreements and contracts.”

When climate-minded Shenandoah County farmer Fred Garber is asked why he considered integration of 9,666 bifacial solar panels on 22 acres of sheep grazing land, he holds up a photograph of his grandchildren.

“We were concerned about what kind of world they are going to live in,” he said. Plus, the lease generates extra income and furnishes Valley residents with emission-free power through his local electric cooperative.

Eleven solar developers approached Garber with proposals, and he chose one associated with the co-op.

County supervisors agreed to permit the agrivoltaics project, stipulating no ground disturbance should occur. Garber was pleased with that.

“I don’t want a bulldozer in here destroying my topsoil that I’ve worked for years and years to build,” he said.

However, the project superintendent insisted on bulldozing the land to prep for installation.

“I said—you can’t do that; there’s no permitting,” Garber recalled. “But after days of contemplation, he decided that he could.”

Like Crowgey, his plan to graze sheep on the solar site dissolved.

“If you go too far without correcting situations, it’s a point of no return,” he said. “It really irks me that we don’t have sheep. But the developer … did not have experience with sheep and did not care to pursue it.”

He recommends consulting with a real estate lawyer who can read a lease before signing a solar contract.