Spatial Climate Solutions Lab awarded grant on agrivoltaics in Washington state

Washington Dept. of Commerce and Climate Commitment Act is funding the American Farmland Trust, The Nature Conservancy, UC Santa Barbara, and Washington State University on a project to assess the potential of agrivoltaics in Washington including engaging farming communities to understand challenges and opportunities for agrivoltaics, a state-wide map of agrivoltaic potential and property-specific agrivoltaic models. UCSB (Riley Tinianov and Prof Wu) will lead the development of a coupled PV system and crop model to design agrivoltaic systems that optimize crop productivity and solar electricity generation for multiple farms in Washington. 

Agrivoltaics is the dual use of land for solar energy production and agriculture, and in the context of this study, it is crop production underneath or adjacent to solar panels. Agrivoltaic systems could play an important role in reducing the land use conflict between solar project development and food production, as new solar power plants are likely to be sited in flat, sunny, and easily accessible locations, characteristics that describe where most of the farmland in the US is located. However, research on optimal agrivoltaic designs in the US is lacking, precluding developers’ and farmers’ ability to assess costs and benefits.

TNC's press release 
Read about the other projects awarded under this grant. 

Photo taken at Jack's Solar Garden in Colorado (credit: G.Wu)