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One of the smallest states in the US has been punching way above its weight in terms of installed solar capacity for almost 25 years, and it’s not stopping there. A new statewide project is in the works to draw more farms into the agrivoltaic movement, in which solar panels and agriculture combine for mutual benefit.
An Agrivoltaic Solution For The Garden State
If you guessed the state in question is New Jersey, either you caught the Garden State reference or you’re reading this now. Either way, New Jersey holds the #10 position for installed solar capacity in a 50-state ranking. That’s quite a feat for a state that sits down at #46 by land mass.
To further complicate the prospects for solar growth, New Jersey is a densely developed state sandwiched between Philadelphia and New York City, packed with suburban towns, malls, roadways, railways, and commercial activity including major airports and seaports. That leaves little room for the kind of sprawling solar arrays common in Texas and other land-rich states.
To shrink the pool of available space further, New Jersey ranks high on the scale of land set aside for public parks and wildlife conservation. One survey puts it at 20%, second only to Alaska.
That explains why much of the growth in solar capacity has consisted of rooftop solar arrays, parking lot canopies, and other small-scale installations. Agriculture comprises one of the few remaining sectors in which private property is not already developed for other uses.
An Agrivoltaic Project On Every Farm
Solar developers have been encountering rising opposition in rural communities, but the 2022 New Jersey agricultural census indicates that farmers in the state are already amenable to infrastructure that leverages solar energy. The census includes farms earning annual revenue, or potential revenue, of $1,000 or more. As of 2022, it showed that greenhouse operations lead the state’s agriculture industry along with nurseries, floriculture, and sod production.
“New Jersey ranks fifth in the nation in nursery stock sales at $296 million and is third in potted flowering plant sales at $77.5 million,” the NJ Department of Agriculture explained in a recap of the 2022 census posted earlier this year.
Of note, the census also revealed the New Jersey outstrips larger states in the production of certain specialty crops and row crops, two areas in which agrivoltaic activity is beginning to ramp up. That includes eggplant (#3 in state rankings), cranberries and asparagus (#4), and blueberries (#5). The Agriculture Department also lists New Jersey in the Top 10 for peaches, plums, bell peppers, spinach, bok choy, escarole, and other crops.
Agrivoltaic Projects, From Megawatts To Gigawatts
In a state where farmers are already squeezed for space, farms are also getting smaller. That trend is also consistent with the potential for agrivoltaic projects to maximize the use of space. The 2022 census showed that the amount of acres farmed in New Jersey fell in accord with national trends, but the number of farms rose by 115 to hit 9,998. In contrast, the number of farms in the US fell by 7%.
Agrivoltaic projects can also complement the state’s growing agritourism sector. Despite the interruption of the COVID-19 outbreak, farmer revenue from agritourism in New Jersey topped $29 million in 2022, up from $18 million in 2017.
Against this backdrop, in October the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities announced the launch of the new Dual-Use Agrivoltaics Pilot Program. Billed as one of the first dual-use agrivoltaic programs in the country to be implemented on a statewide basis, the three-year program is aiming at a total of up to 200 megawatts over the next three years.
That’s just for starters. The Utilities Board notes that its NJBPU Solar Program has shepherded the installation of more than 205,000 solar projects in New Jersey since its inception in 2000, for a total capacity of 4.9 gigawatts. Last year the Solar Program held a record-setting pace for applications, bringing the total up to 6.2 gigawatts if projects in the pipeline are included.
Research culled from participating farms in the Dual-Use Program will support a permanent program, complete with construction and operation standards that will help accelerate more widespread adoption. The Rutgers University Agrivoltaic Program is charged with administering the program.
In an interesting twist, BPU also notes that its community solar program has been taking off. Community solar projects are another area in which agrivoltaic practices are beginning to emerge, providing new business opportunities for local livestock grazers and other farmers.
Interested? Stay tuned for a Notice of Availability sometime in January. Updates will be posted on the BPU website and the New Jersey Clean Energy Program website, or sign up for BPU and Clean Energy listservs.
The Dual-Use Movement Has Just Begun
CleanTechnica has been following the agrivoltaic movement since 2018, when researchers at the US Department of Energy and elsewhere began to assemble evidence that some crops can thrive in the partial shade of solar panels. The shade also fosters a supportive microclimate for soil and water conservation, while the cooling effect of vegetation helps to increase solar conversion efficiency (see lots more dual-use background here).
In the following years, much of the activity has focused on livestock grazing or habitat restoration with a focus on pollinator-friendly plants that support nearby crops. More recently, the agrivoltaic field has branched out with an assist from new, vertical bifacial solar technology. Rutgers recently installed the first such vertical solar panels in New Jersey at its farm in New Brunswick, to assess how the vertical configuration can facilitate hay mowing as well as livestock grazing.
The case for agrivoltaics is also gaining attention for its role in preventing a catastrophic decline in the global insect population. Last year, researchers from the Energy Department and academic partners published the results of a five-year study assessing the impacts of habitat restoration on the grounds of utility-scale solar arrays.
“We found increases over time for all habitat and biodiversity metrics: floral rank, flowering plant species richness, insect group diversity, native bee abundance, and total insect abundance, with the most noticeable temporal increases in native bee abundance,” the research team concluded. Overall, they assessed that insect communities responded to the habitat restoration project at the relatively rapid pace of less than four years.
In another key finding, the researchers found that bee visitations from the solar array to a nearby soybean field were comparable to the visitations from a nearby farmland preserved under the US Department of Agriculture’s Conservation Reserve Program.
That’s interesting from a rural solar development perspective. The CRP is tasked with helping farmers restore marginal lands. It covers millions of acres under 10-15 year contracts. If utility-scale solar arrays can achieve similar goals while generating clean kilowatts, then so much the better.
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Photo (cropped): Space-saving bifiacial PV technology is a new addition to the dual-use agrivoltaic movement, which enables farmers to continue working their land while realizing income from solar projects (courtesy of Rutgers University).
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