CCSI Webinar: Agri-voltaics – Combining Productive Farmland with Solar

CCSI Webinar: Agri-voltaics – Combining Productive Farmland with Solar 

When: January 11th

Time: 3:00 Eastern 

Panelists:

Farmer Byron Kominek 

At Jack’s Solar Garden, the family farm of Byron Kominek located in Colorado, solar panels generate enough electricity to power 300 homes to use in a year. The installation was designed in a way that not only allows production of specialty crops, but also decreases plant stress and increases water use efficiencies. They have also discovered that plant evapotranspiration actually keeps the solar panels cooler – making them more efficient.

Dr. Stacie Peterson, National Center for Appropriate Technology (NCAT) AgriSolar Project 

Stacie is the Energy Program Director for the National Center for Appropriate Technology (NCAT). She has been a team of over 30 partners and stakeholders, including leading US experts from national energy labs, universities, the solar industry, agriculture, pollinator organizations and solar grazing associations. Part of that team’s work includes the NCAT AgriSolar Clearinghouse https://www.agrisolarclearinghouse.org/- a wealth of information available for free download as well as a peer-mentoring group, an online forum, and access to technical specialists.

Dr. Greg Barron-Gafford 

For the past 8 years, Greg has been building the field of agrivoltaics – the concept of collocating agriculture and solar farms. He leads a diverse team of physical, social and biological scientists whose research includes agrivoltaics for different regions, crops, and climates. They are working to keep or bring back agriculture production in the understory of photovoltaic panels – including protection of plants from extreme weather conditions by the solar arrays and co-benefit of panel cooling by plant transpiration, increasing their efficiency.