Family-Farm-Scale Solar
Family-Farm-Scale Solar:
Very Different from Large Utility-Scale Solar Farms
Written by Doug Neidich, CEO- GreenWorks Development
Pennsylvania has seen a tremendous amount of activity around the development of solar farms in the last few years, but not all solar farms are the same. Two fundamentally different approaches currently exist.
Utility scale solar farms are typically multi-hundred-acre-or-greater installations that are connected directly to high voltage transmission lines. Because of their size, these farms typically don’t include integrated agricultural activity such as grazing or farming under the panels.
Net metered solar farms are constructed identically to utility scale solar farms, but are much smaller, and instead of connecting to transmission lines they’re tied to three-phase distribution power lines. These solar farms are usually ten to thirty acres in size and are what I’ve come to call solar on the scale of family farms. At GreenWorks Development/SRE Renewables, we install family-farm-scale arrays in two different heights: a 3-foot minimum panel height array for grazing sheep, hogs, or chickens under the panels, and a 7-foot minimum height array for grazing cattle or growing bush crops under the solar canopy. Each farm-scale array is fully fenced, and the panels provide shade to livestock or farmers. For grazing applications, we build animal shelters that happen to generate electricity.
The lease income to the farmer that results from solar installation is typically $2000 to $3000 per acre annually, depending on panel height, and this income supplements the agricultural income generated by the farming activity while the solar canopy enhances that farming activity. In several of our projects, that additional income has allowed the farm to stay in the family and not be sold to a building developer
The panels that are typically used in solar development are bifacial panels, meaning that glass covers the panels on both their top and bottom sides. That not only allows ambient sunlight to be collected by the underside of the panel, but about 5% of the sunlight hitting the top of the panel shines directly through the top and bottom glass panes. That filtered sunlight, combined with sun that shines at an angle under the panels at different times of the day and times of the growing season creates an environment under the panels in which grass and many agricultural crops grow well.
For grazing applications, we build that happens to generate electricity.
The shade of the panels helps to keep the ground moist, too. The rows of a farm-scale array are on 25-foot centers, and each row is 12 feet wide, so a 13-foot clear space exists between each solar row. I-beam posts are driven into the ground to support the array (similar to guardrail posts along the highway), and all wiring is done on the underside of the panels, away from livestock.
In several of our projects, the additional solar income has allowed the farm to stay in the family and not be sold to a building developer.
It's easy to understand how utility-scale and family-farm-scale solar get confused, but the practical differences couldn’t be more significant. Combining agriculture and clean energy production thoughtfully is a way to enhance farming practice, enable family farms to survive and thrive, and create a network of small (typically 3 to 9 MW, compared to a typical gas generating plant that is 500 to 800 MW in capacity) clean energy generating systems that can help to create a cleaner, more resilient electrical grid and a more sustainable future for both farmers and the community.
GreenWorks Development/SRE Renewables is the largest commercial solar developer in Pennsylvania, with over 450 projects completed since 2010. The company is headquartered in the Harrisburg area and does projects throughout Pennsylvania.
Image credits: first image- GreenWorks Development / second image- Jack's Solar Garden, Longmont, CO
