Solar grazing is part of the field of agricultural photovoltaic development, which refers to the combination of livestock or crop production with the installation of solar photovoltaic modules. Sheep are a particularly good match, their size and temperament for grazing under photovoltaic panels. According to an ongoing study at Cornell University, using sheep instead of diesel lawn mowers can reduce greenhouse gas emissions (though transporting a flock from one location to another can have its own carbon footprint).
Sheep also provide fertilizer, which helps improve soil fertility and the potential to extract more carbon from the atmosphere and store it in the roots.
Despite the popularity of the solar grazing model, it still faces barriers to adoption, such as obtaining the insurance required by solar developers and the administrative costs of transporting sheep. In 2018 the U.S. launched the Solar Grazing Association of America, the first one-stop shop for solar grazing resources, with contract templates and a map tool to connect farmers with solar companies. The association is currently developing a franchise model that will allow grazing herbivores to share insurance and other resources with solar PV plants.
There are now 470 members of solar grazing associations across the U.S., while the area devoted to solar grazing has exploded. In New York, there were about 79 acres in 2018, which has jumped to 900 acres in 2020.
One farmer involved in solar grazing said, “There are many synergistic benefits of grazing sheep on solar energy. When we think about it for ourselves, this is the future of agriculture.”