Green Roof Agrivoltaics Gets a Boost From Ground at CSU Spur – Sandbox Solar – Denver, CO

A new top-of-pole solar mount now stands in the backyard of Colorado State University’s Spur’s Hydro building. Thanks to funding through a Colorado Department of Agriculture grant and a speedy installation completed by Sandbox Solar, a single-pole MT Solar mount is helping offset energy costs at the Denver-based educational center. And while reduced carbon consumption and costs are welcome advantages, this latest addition stands to be especially consequential to CSU’s Spur’s educational and research objectives.

A Life-Size Agrivoltaics Teaching Tool

Among the living laboratory of the Hydro Building Backyard, Spur’s visitors can get a close-up look at some of the facility’s agrivoltaics research. The tidy 24-module array and plants already growing below it make the mount a safe, productive, and accessible solar showcase.

Helping the public understand productive relationships between energy and agriculture is powerful, but the solar ground mount is a lot more than just a life-sized teaching tool. By providing control data to compare with CSU Spur’s green roof systems, it’s furthering new research for CSU’s College of Agricultural Sciences.

Photos: Kevin Samuelson and Colorado State University

Solar-Tested Crops, Six Stories Off the Ground

CSU Spur maintains roof-based agrivoltaics systems on its Terra and Hydro buildings. Led under the guidance of Prof. Jennifer Bousselot, the green roofs were originally established as testing grounds for agriculture and pollinator preservation in urban spaces. After flat roof-mounted solar racking with monofacial and bifacial panels was installed in 2022, the sites have since become a novel study space for agrivoltaics.

As of 2023, Prof. Bousselot and a graduate research student team have been examining the solar panel’s impacts on the survivability, productivity, and biomass of various meadow plots and high-value crops, including chili peppers, medicinal herbs, leafy greens, saffron, and raspberries. These agrivoltaics plantings are paired with full-sun control plots.

At six stories off the ground, the team evaluates crop growth, flowering, fruiting, and moisture levels to better understand the effects of the panel-cast shade, fluctuating temperatures, and western winds coming off the Rocky Mountains and the South Platte River. With the recent addition of the ground-based solar mount, the researchers will also work to gain insight into how roof-based agrivoltaics compares with a ground-based system at the same location.

Closing Gaps With Dual-Use Energy and Urban Agriculture

The results could provide valuable guidance for green roof agrivoltaics setups and determine which crops stand to thrive in such a planting arrangement. Introducing this type of dual-use energy generation and food production could provide renewal to underutilized urban spaces.

Additionally, if these agrivoltaics setups work for producing high-value, difficult-to-transport crops, they have the potential to help close nutrition and food supply gaps in densely populated areas.

Following the ground installation completion in September of 2025, CSU Spur’s team has already sown saffron and raspberries to compare with those growing six stories up. Additional crops may be introduced depending on future funding.

“The completion of this project took several partners to see it to fruition: the land/institution owners, the utility, the contractor, and the agriculturists – including several of their lawyers. The installation may be demonstration-sized but it took the same level of engagement to bring it to reality as it would for a large-scale installation.”
– Dr. Jennifer Bousselot, Associate Professor of Horticulture, CSU

New Heights for Agrivoltaics Research

This latest solar addition is one of many that have made CSU a force in agrivoltaics research. Its projects can be found at multiple sites in Colorado and include another Sandbox Solar installation at Fort Collins, CO, which is using a series of MT Solar mounts and panel transparencies to test crop growth in varied shade conditions.

We’re exceedingly pleased to see this project come together and sincerely appreciate the direct input from Prof. Bousselot that enabled us to share this story. As with many of the research projects that utilize our mounts, MT Solar is eager to learn what CSU researchers will uncover and proud to continue doing our part to help take agrivoltaics to more places and new heights.