Grainswest - Tech 2024

Tech 2024 grainswest.com 31 Hot renewables trend may allow better integration of ag and solar A lberta is an energy producer, and this will not soon change. However, the way in which energy is generated has evolved. Oil and gas production remains the province’s golden ticket, but with a sustained push, renewables continue to fight for market share. So many projects have gone into development or are at the assessment stage, it’s been hard to keep up. One of the newest types of builds is agrivoltaics, which has attracted big interest from farmers and corporate investors alike. The term agrivoltaics refers to the placement of agricultural production and solar panels on the same block of land. The fact solar arrays effectively take farmland out of production has been very controversial in rural Alberta. Where typical, angled solar panel projects render a field unusable for agriculture, apart from weed-chomping sheep and goat herds, agrivoltaics projects are configured to co-exist with farming. Solar panels are primarily installed upright, which produces minimal shadow. Panel rows are also spaced adequately to allow cattle to graze and farm machinery to BY TREVOR BACQUE • ILLUSTRATION BY DARYA SHNYKINA SHARED ACCOMMODATION