Though they’re still being explored, best practices for agrivoltaics are becoming more defined.
Research projects, like the collaboration between Sandbox Solar and Colorado State University, are showing what’s possible when crops and solar mounts are combined for sustainable land use and energy production.
Agrivoltaics has gained a lot of ground moving from a concept to a viable solution, which has led to new and ambitious subsets like solar grazing.
Solar grazing could bring substantial energy production to just a portion of the more than 500 million U.S. acres devoted to rangelands and pastures. It could also be revolutionary for farmers, ranchers, and solar installers. But, it’s relatively unfamiliar territory that’s posing some interesting challenges even as it presents growing benefits.
In this article, we’ll cover solar grazing as a concept, along with some of its challenges and possibilities.
What is Solar Grazing?
Solar grazing combines solar energy production with grazing space. As free-range animals forage around and below the mount, mowing requirements are reduced, overgrowth is controlled without herbicides, and solar arrays are kept clear to harness more energy. Solar mounts with higher ground clearance also provide a cool, shady shelter for livestock, which keeps them healthier, happier, and more productive.
Since its introduction, solar grazing has mostly brought sheep onto solar farms. Because their size and behavior make them unlikely to interact with mount hardware–especially the more vulnerable parts of the array–sheep are generally thought of as more compatible with low-clearance solar mounts. Goats, pigs, cows, and horses were considered poor candidates for grazing on dedicated solar farms, mainly due to the limited ground clearance of mounts. And while chickens can safely forage below most solar racking, they aren’t very effective for controlling grass.
More recently, solar grazing has expanded beyond solar farms and spaces dedicated to energy production. Instead, the concept introduces solar power to land that already prioritizes livestock– including more than just sheep.
Is Mixing Solar Mounts and Cows a Good Idea?
Researchers, ranchers, dairy farmers, and solar developers are now collaborating to see if cows and solar mounts can safely coexist through cattle-voltaics.
Cattle-voltaics uses high-clearance solar mounts on grazing land, bringing solar energy production to farms, pastures, and rangeland. Like agrivoltaics, cattle-voltaics aims to increase and diversify land usability. The addition of solar mounts introduces a new resource without significantly disrupting the land’s primary purpose. The mounts are always integrated in a way that puts livestock health and land management first.
While land productivity is the priority in cattle-voltaics, sustainable energy generation is more than just a secondary advantage. Solar mounts can deliver diverse benefits, including powering electric farm equipment, supporting off-grid operations, and providing passive, consistent income when agriculture profits fluctuate.
Cattle-voltaics could also offer symbiotic benefits for livestock and energy production. Mounts function as shade structures for animals, keeping their body temperatures lower, reducing their water consumption, and decreasing stress. Solar mounts mitigate moisture loss, soil erosion, and ground temperature extremes, which promote the growth of native grasses, grain crops, and other types of forage. Animals help manage this vegetation, which reduces mowing requirements. Additionally, efficiency is improved when moisture evaporates from grasses grown below the arrays, which keeps PV modules cooler and operating at greater capacity.
What Can Solar Grazing Offer Farmers and Ranchers?
Along with marked benefits for animals and grazing land, early cattle-voltaics projects have lightened burdens for farmers, ranchers, and landowners. Among the strongest benefits is increasing the land’s productivity and broadening its returns–without sacrificing its original purpose as a grazing and growing space.
Environmental and market factors mean that agriculture profits tend to fluctuate. For farmers and ranchers, this creates financial strain and limits flexibility for long-range investments. Adding energy generation capabilities their land can bring in more reliable, supplemental income. These increased profits allow farmers and ranchers to grow their operations and secure their future with less stress and uncertainty.
Beyond energy dividends, early cattle-voltaics research has shown that solar mounts could boost agriculture productivity by improving animal health and gains, which can improve yields from milk, meat, fiber, and offspring. Simply adding shade and cover to grazing lands can be an impactful investment in livestock quality of life—all the while, these shade structures power farming and processing equipment, as well as buildings and vehicles.
Those at the forefront of novel agrivoltaics projects like cattle-voltaics can take advantage of new incentives and cost-offsetting programs. Solar grazing can open doors to funding, grants, partnerships, and other opportunities. This includes the LASSO prize, which is offering millions of dollars to award-worthy cattle-voltaics projects starting in the spring of 2025.
Addressing Challenges in Solar Grazing and Cattle-Voltaics
The more we explore solar grazing’s possibilities and how it could improve life for livestock and farmers, the more challenges we’re likely to uncover. But in turn, we’re already finding ways to make solar mounts work around, and with, grazing requirements.
One of the most common concerns with cattle-voltaics is creating a solar setup that’s essentially cow-proof. Addressing the cow-proofing challenge starts with raising arrays to a ground clearance far above the reach of the largest cow. Top-of-pole mounts take care of this easily. And while higher ground clearance can dent more of a project’s budget, adopting a scalable approach can help.
Higher ground clearance is one of the best methods for not only cow-proofing but future-proofing an agrivoltaics investment. Keeping arrays higher keeps the land usable for a broad range of purposes in the short and long term. When solar mounts accommodate dual use, pasture land can transition into growing fields and back, enabling farmers and ranchers to be more responsive to changing market conditions. Even as their agriculture techniques and goals change, their solar mounts remain an asset and never an obstruction.
Solar mount configurability also accommodates incremental growth. Developing a short and long-range project design can keep costs realistic and allow systems to expand as returns are gained. Securing financing through programs like USDA’s REAP, and similar funding resources and tax incentives, can also keep projects within budget without sacrificing features or feasibility.
Rasing solar arrays is just one part of cow-proofing a solar mount. Mount supports must be able to withstand the force of a 2000-pound bull in search of a good scratch. Fortunately, pole mounts that endure 100 mph winds can deliver that level of strength, but this requires a properly engineered foundation. Concrete solar mount foundations are low profile. While they reduce a small portion of soil around each mount pole, they pose no hazards to animals or vegetation. Their embedment will require the ground to be disturbed during installation, but only slightly more than a large steel fence post. Piledriven poles are also an option for cattle-voltaics. They can reliably support most mounts without ground excavation or concrete embedment.
Even with a piledriven foundation, conduit trenches and grading are necessities for most ground solar installations. For this reason, solar grazing projects should include a plan to restore or plant adequate forage before the animals are introduced into the area. Proper grazing land preparation and maintenance around the mounts prevents mud, weeds, and ground erosion, and keeps animals focused on foraging instead of interacting with mount hardware.
From determining the minimum spacing between mount rows to accommodate tractor-turning radiuses to running conduit so that it won’t catch on cow horns, solar grazing project planning will be more complex than the average ground mount installation. Without resources, even the most ambitious rancher or solar installer will feel overwhelmed fast. A concept as novel as cattle-voltaics means that sole authorities with all the answers on all aspects of a project are rare, if not nonexistent. But, solar grazing is generating powerful collaborations across agriculture and energy. Knowledge gaps and unexpected challenges are prompting more experts to connect across industries and find solutions that put theory into practice.
We at MT Solar will be eager to contribute and see all the ways solar mount technology fits into this exciting frontier.
