How agrivoltaics is marrying food production with green energy in Alberta

Jason Bradley spent 20 years of his career as ranch manager at a 50,000-acre grazing operation in west-central Alberta, so he understands why people react with skepticism to the idea of raising a herd of cattle on a working solar farm.

"The first thing people think is, 'You can't put cattle on [a solar farm]. They're just going to rub on the panels and wreck them,"' Bradley said.

But as the CEO of Calgary-based Sun Cycle Farms, Bradley believes the doubters have already been proven wrong.

This fall, Sun Cycle conducted a pilot project that grazed cattle inside a grid-connected solar farm in southern Alberta — something Bradley said proves that livestock production and renewable energy can successfully co-exist.

"It was not just to prove it to ourselves — I knew it could be done in an existing solar facility," Bradley said.

"But we had to prove to the asset owner, to the insurance company, even to investors that are looking at this and show this is a part of the solution."

Sun Cycle Farms is an agrivoltaics company, part of a rapidly expanding field that aims to combine solar energy production with agricultural activities.

Across North America, solar farm owners are increasingly deploying sheep and even pigs at their sites to keep the weeds down and reduce the need for mowing around the panels.

Researchers around the world are also looking into what types of crops can be grown in and around solar panels.

Contrary to what you might expect, many crops actually perform better when shaded by a massive solar panel than they do under direct sunlight, said Joshua Pearce, a solar energy expert at Western University.

"Most crops that we have grown outdoors normally actually get a little bit too much sun," Pearce said.

"Underneath the solar panel, or next to it, you have almost like a protected micro-environment. There's not as much wind, you don't have to worry about hail, it even helps to preserve the water in the soil a little more."

Land use issues were less pressing when solar energy was in its infancy a couple of decades ago because the fledgling industry was so small.

But the rapid rollout of renewable power in recent years means the physical footprint of solar can no longer be ignored.