THE DIRT

Solar energy now accounts for nearly 5 percent of U.S. energy generation. With billions from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and Inflation Reduction Act, that number could grow to 40 percent in the next decade. It is estimated all the new solar power facilities could take up to 5.7 million acres, or land equal to 0.3 percent of the U.S. land surface. Where will all this new solar go? Combining existing farms with solar power is a smart option, as it would help leverage existing energy infrastructure and increase efficiency of land use.

To explore the future of renewables and agriculture, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) is seeking submissions for its agrivoltaics student design competition. The goal is to design new ways to integrate solar into both rural and urban agricultural landscapes. Design concepts are also meant to help solve “community sustainability challenges across the food-energy-water nexus.”

According to NREL, agrivoltaics is a term for combining agriculture and solar photovoltaic (PV) in the same parcel of land. But it’s also much more than that. “These systems prioritize food production, ecosystem services, farm viability, local community values, land use efficiency, and energy generation to increase the sustainability and shared value of solar development.” The Laboratory states that “inclusive and holistic system design” is needed to bring all these elements together.

Already, some 2.8 gigawatts of agrivoltaics exist across the U.S. Many combine solar energy with pollinator habitat and sheep grazing.

NREL is looking for new design proposals that:

• “Thoughtfully integrate solar PV facilities into agricultural landscapes while also optimizing agricultural productivity, energy generation, and engagement.
• Address all aspects of the food-energy-water nexus, particularly in optimizing agricultural and energy outputs while minimizing freshwater use.
• Are adaptable to different geographies with similar climatic conditions.
• Include novel approaches to engage local communities and stakeholders on food and energy generation in the same land, including long-term food security
  considerations.”

The Laboratory has selected three sites that offer different sizes and contexts:

• Cattle Grazing / Commodity Crop Farming, 200 hectares (500 Acres) in Weld County, Colorado
• Fruit Production / Orchard / Viticulture, 8 hectares (20 Acres), Mesa County, Colorado
• Urban Farm / Rooftop Farm / Small Farm, 2 hectares (5 Acres), Denver County, Colorado

NREL invites graduate and undergraduate landscape architecture students to participate, ideally as part of a transdisciplinary team of no more than four people. Winning student teams for each of the three sites will receive $2,000-$3,000.

Two landscape architecture professors are among the jury:

• Dr. Jody Beck, Landscape Architecture Department, College of Architecture and Planning, University of Colorado Denver
• Jane Choi, Department of Horticulture & Landscape Architecture, Colorado State University

The winning teams will also present their work to an international audience of renewable energy policymakers in Denver, Colorado, June 11-13. All teams will showcase their projects in poster format at a showcase.

Registration deadline is March 29 and the submission deadline is May 10.