Researchers at The University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign’s Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment (iSEE) are working to confront competing priorities of food and energy production, particularly as they impact sustainable land use.

The institute’s Sustainability Co-locating Agriculture and Photovoltaic Electrify Systems (SCAPES) project includes a range of research endeavors that seek out opportunities to improve agriculture and energy production using a common space.

Started through a multi-state collaboration in 2019, SCAPES was awarded a USDA grant in 2020, which was used to fund a 15 kW solar installation on the university’s 320-acre Energy Farm.

MT Solar helped the grant go further by subsidising the cost of the three top-of-pole mounts that serve as the foundation for new agrivoltaics research. Each mount holds 24 solar modules, which were reclaimed from a demolished university building.

Dubbed “Hortivoltaics” by SCAPES’ principal investigator and Professor of Crop Sciences and Plant Biology, Carl Bernacchi, this combination of solar mounts and plant research tests the growth of high-value horticultural crops, like kale and tomatoes, rather than commodity crops like soy and sorghum.

The Hortivolatics site researchers will measure crop responses to a series of environmental factors. As the modules affect light exposure, ground temperature, moisture retention, and other factors, the site provides numerous research variables for a range of different plants.

As Professor Benacchi states on iSEE’s blog, “It adds a whole dynamic level of diversity to the type of systems that we can study.”

Photo: iSEE | University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

The Hortivoltaics project makes use of the mounts’ ground clearance and adjustability to simplify ground management. Tractors and other equipment can be safely used around the mounts. Researchers can also easily access the area for a range of operations. Although the plants are not grown directly below the nearly 32-foot-wide arrays, the mounts help create variable conditions that function as microclimates.

These microclimates are important for measuring the productivity and health of crops in the Energy Farm’s Midwest climate, but they can also provide insight for the project’s multi-state collaborators in Arizona and Colorado.

The solar mounts’ impact on sun exposure, soil moisture retention, and other factors is especially useful when uncovering drought mitigation and irrigation resource reduction methods in drier climates or for moisture-loving crops.

Hortivoltaics insights could broaden the versatility and scope of agrivoltaics by potentially offering sustainable, energy-generating resources to produce growers, as well as commodity crop producers. Solar mounts that improve the productivity of crops like tomatoes, peppers, cabbage, and strawberries, as well as wheat and soy, could be a justifiable investment for growers who want to future-proof their fields and gain income from land-use that spans all seasons.

Besides its Hortivoltaics site, SCAPES is exploring other systems and methods for introducing sustainable energy infrastructure into food-producing spaces, which extend across collaborative studies in Colorado, Arizona, and other sites in Illinois. Solar systems that accommodate and enhance growing conditions and reduce resource demands, without imposing limits on farmers, are central to their efforts. MT Solar is pleased to see our top-of-pole mounts fit into such initiatives.

We’re eager to see what develops as the SCAPES projects continue. We look forward to opportunities to facilitate research like this with versatile and reliable solar racking.