Solar Farm Summit

We’ve only just recovered from a record-breaking 2024 Solar Farm Summit to start sharing some pics! Thanks to everyone who made time to attend the largest agrivoltaics conference and exhibition ever assembled on Earth! The expo, poster gallery, and ticket sales all doubled; and the number of participating farmers and ranchers more than tripled!! Special thanks to all the speakers contributing to the truly awesome and timely program for their professionalism, candor and passion!!! We were so impressed by the incredible collection of exhibitors this year, who brought the very best in the business of energy, environment and agriculture to bear! View every SFS24 exhibitor and link through to their websites and important work here: https://lnkd.in/gKvy_HGd We couldn’t have done this without enormous support from our sponsors, whose direct contributions allowed for real sparks to fly in this new market in the form of more than a hundred free passes to attend the conference! Thank you to SFS24 Title Sponsor, American Farmland Trust, not only for its outsized support, but for its original leadership in this modern land use renaissance (Est. 1980), its shared belief in our mission to leverage the science of agrivoltaics to create opportunities for America’s farmers and ranchers, and for allowing us to collaborate with its dedicated and talented team of professionals—who were each as generous with their time and talents behind the scenes as AFT with its financial support!! Extra thanks to Terawatt sponsors Nextracker Inc., Distributed Energy Infrastructure, and Solargik, all trailblazers in their own right—who each also made outstanding contributions to this year's exceptional educational program! Check out all the amazing, groundbreaking sponsors of the 2024 Solar Farm Summit here: https://lnkd.in/gsBB8KYU And deep gratitude to our unbelievable on-site team, SFS24 volunteers, and the entire Meyer family, who helped us power through being short handed in the end and helping us to work around more than one surprise! Stay turned for steady follow up the rest of this summer, including posts here on our LinkedIn feed, videos from SFS24 posting to our YouTube channel, and email updates! The official SFS24 Conference Archive is coming soon!! #solar #farm #solarfarming #energy #agriculture #agrivoltaics

ATTENTION SOLAR DEVELOPERS: Our friends at SCAPES are conducting an important survey to understand solar developers' perspectives about agrivoltaics, specifically the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats associated with the adoption of agrivoltaics technology. Supporting research funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, your responses will help inform recommendations about the technological changes and policy incentives needed to induce adoption of agrivoltaics. Please take the 15-minute online survey here: https://lnkd.in/gpFJ-dGS #solar #energy #solarenergy #solardevelopment #agrivoltiacs #survey

I am pleased to share "Renewable Energy in Illinois: The Agrivoltaics Contribution," which was Published in the Summer 2024 issue of the Southern Illinois University Law Review! I am honored to co-author as the fourth author on this paper with my colleagues from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign's Bock Agricultural Law and Policy Program, Quin Karhoff, Bryan Endres, and Jessica Guarino! I thank them for including me in the publication's production even though my time at the University of Illinois has come to a close. This article thoroughly reviews Illinois' policy landscape for solar energy and agrivoltaics, provides a helpful introduction to agrivoltaics for readers unfamiliar with the concept, and features a valuable discussion of the federal and state agrivoltaics policy landscape. https://lnkd.in/g9rPnKVx #agrivoltaics #policy #solar

Listen or watch this incredible episode of the Clean Power Hour recorded live from the floor of the Solar Farm Summit featuring one of America’s foremost agrivoltaics minds, first-movers, and researchers—Greg Barron-Gafford! Get into the big picture behind the current agrivoltaics boom, its humble beginnings here in America, and some of the best answers the basic questions as to why and how dual-use development bears such substantial benefit as Greg and host Tim Montague share an insightful dialogue happening in the heart of North America’s Agrivoltaics Expo!! Watch or listen to the entire conversation on YouTube here: https://lnkd.in/gZkH-63a Find all episodes of the Clean Power Hour and subscribe on your preferred podcast platform on the Clean Power Hour website here: https://lnkd.in/dQNu7vDH #solar #farm #farming #agriculture #agrivoltaics

Solar can create opportunities for new and beginning farmers that didn't exist before. At the 2024 Solar Farm Summit, I caught up with my colleague Eric Bronson of James River Grazing Company LLC. As a first-generation farmer, Eric shares how embracing #agrivoltaics has created an opportunity to pass down an agricultural business to his two young sons that wouldn't exist without partners in the solar industry.

Join the Colorado Agrivoltaic Learning Center on September 19th for a discussion on cattle in solar arrays! Register here: https://lnkd.in/g8ayWv62 This is a free webinar that will be recorded and saved on our website - www.coagrivoltaic.org. Our speakers for this webinar are: Brad Heins of the University of Minnesota, Josh Bennett of EDF Renewables North America, Brent Huwa of Huwa Enterprises, and Stephen Herbert of the University of Massachusetts Amherst. This is a timely webinar if you are intending to apply for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Solar Energy Technologies Office's Large Animal and Solar System Operations (LASSO) prize - https://lnkd.in/gbY8jc6H - as Phase 1 submissions open in September and close in March 2025. I do like to note that the image on the LASSO prize's page is of cattle under solar panels at Jack's Solar Garden in 2022 as is the image below in the flyer for this webinar though taken in May of 2024. Cattle within solar arrays is possible - likely more so than many reading this post will believe. If that's the case, join us for this webinar and think differently about how we can incorporate larger livestock in American-made solar arrays. #agrivoltaics #cattle #solarenergy #agriculture #innovation #ideas #learnings #energy #inspiration

Just over 2 WEEKS until the landmark documentary film on the transformative power of solar grazing premieres at RE+ Anaheim! If you're attending RE+, please join us on Monday, September 9th for an in-person premiere of the ASGA short documentary film project. The first 100 guests at the premiere will receive a special ASGA goody bag. RSVP for the RE+ premiere event: https://lnkd.in/eD6T9TRB “There’s so much opportunity here” - Daniel Dotterer  Daniel, the owner of Agrivoltaic Innovations and Daniel Dotterer Farms, is a 12th generation Dotterer farming in Pennsylvania and one of the farmers featured in the film. If you haven't seen the trailer, watch it now - we think it's pretty great 😊 https://lnkd.in/eWWc5TKW #solargrazing #solargrazingfilm #ASGAfilm #ASGA @replusevents @solarindustry @ sepapower

ATTENTION SOLAR DEVELOPERS: Our friends at SCAPES are conducting an important survey to understand solar developers' perspectives about agrivoltaics, specifically the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats associated with the adoption of agrivoltaics technology. Supporting research funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, your responses will help inform recommendations about the technological changes and policy incentives needed to induce adoption of agrivoltaics. Please take the 15-minute online survey here: https://lnkd.in/gpFJ-dGS #solar #energy #solarenergy #solardevelopment #agrivoltiacs #survey

One week away! As solar grows, there are significant opportunities for farms to benefit, gaining access to new revenue streams while also maintaining land for grazing, wildlife, or other uses. Join the 8/28 webinar, Agrivoltaics: Solar and Farmland Have Mutual Benefits. In this SolSmart webinar, zoning expert Brian Ross from the Great Plains Institute will provide an overview of best practices and common solutions around planning, zoning, and incentives for agrivoltaics and large-scale solar. Register today! https://ow.ly/Uo1E50SZprW

“Miles Q. Braxton started his company, Okovate Sustainable Energy, to work exclusively on “farmer-focused” solar development. Braxton said after several years of developing community solar projects, he “really saw the inefficiencies” of taking farmland out of production for solar projects. “That’s a problem that is just going to keep piling on top of itself until it gets to the point where we can’t develop anything.” … “This is more hands-on of what a farmer can really do in their current practices. If they’re raising cattle, there’s a way that they implement solar with that. If they are having bare land, the pollinator is another way that they can benefit from that,” said Cetta Barnhart,  owner of Seed Time Harvest Farms in Florida. “So how these solar projects are developed and created for real farmers is still a big conversation to be had...” Dig into this expansive article from Energy News Network also featuring Jordan Macknick, Ena Jones, and Mike DellaGala that explores many of the big ideas discussed at the 2024 Solar Farm Summit and key to building a broadly-based boom in multi-use solar farming empowered by new agrivoltaics models: https://lnkd.in/dQxbTmMR #solar #farm #solarfarming #farmers #agriculture #energy #agrivoltaics