Byron Kominek wants his family farm just south of Longmont to become a research center for whether solar power generation, bee habitat and agricultural production can happily coexist under sun-capturing panels in Colorado.
The 24-acre property at 8102 N. 95th St., which Kominek grew up visiting with his family, could soon have about 3,000 solar panels covering part of it — but the shade they would cast on the soil won’t necessarily stop the land from growing food or hosting pollinators.
Instead, Kominek and researchers with Colorado State University, the University of Arizona and the National Renewable Energy Lab would continue to grow crops and keep beehives below the panels, measuring whether the shadows they provide are helpful to the vegetation and insects.
Growing crops alongside photovoltaic solar power equipment is a practice described as “agrivoltaic,” a combination of agriculture and photovoltaic, the name of the type of technology behind the panels. NREL and other research groups have been studying the model in more than 20 areas across the country.
But Jordan Macknick, lead energy, water and land analyst for NREL, predicts it could be especially useful in Colorado.
“The conditions in Colorado I think are pretty ideal for agrivoltaics, where you get increases in both crop yield and photovoltaic solar (power production),” Macknick said. “The hotter and drier you are, the more the panels can help.”
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