New clean energy solutions are being discovered daily as the need for non-carbon-polluting energy solutions grows to meet our need to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.
When examining various solutions, it sometimes feels like you need a chemical engineering degree to understand how they work.
That’s not the case with Solar Sheep, a consulting firm offering Sheep as a Service (SaaS) for solar farm facilities.
The idea of SaaS is simple: combine sheep and solar farms for a sustainable win-win.
While these sheep don’t build solar panels, they play a big role in optimizing solar farms.
And the solar farms, in return help optimize agricultural returns.
How so?
Watch the video below for an overview.
An Alberta Partnership
But what do sheep and solar farms have in common?
The answer is nothing.
But the two go together like maple syrup and pancakes. By themselves, they are OK, but together the combination is magic!
Janna Greir and her husband Ryan own Solar Sheep and Whispering Cedars Ranch in Strathmore, where they breed and raise sheep.
The couple also works with Capital Power, an Edmonton-based power producer, to bring their service sheep to the solar farm, and 2024 marks the Greirs’ third season partnering with the renewable company at its 41-megawatt Strathmore Solar facility.
Fuzzy Mowers
So, how does a power producer like Capital Power benefit from having sheep on the solar farm?
“We use the sheep as our primary vegetation control method,” Brad Cochrane, Capital Power’s Renewables Operations and Maintenance Manager, told Business Renewables Centre.
Cochrane claims the renewable company’s primary goal is to use the sheep as all-natural lawnmowers, which works well since sheep are grazers and eat mostly grass.
The sheep keep the vegetation’s height in check by eating the grass around solar panels, reducing fire risk.
Managing fire risk is especially important in a province like Alberta, where our fire seasons start sooner and burn more intensely than ever before.
Sheep are great at grazing underneath panels that mechanical equipment can’t reach. Plus, the solar panels provide the sheep with shade on hot days.
Not only do sheep save Capital Power a few bucks, but they are also more sustainable than mechanical equipment, according to a recent study.
Food, Fiber and Fertilizer
What does a sheep farmer gain from trucking sheep to a solar farm for grazing?
That’s simple, money.
Solar companies pay local sheep farmers to move sheep onto their solar farms for Solar grazing.
Shepherds like Janna and Ryan care for the sheep during the grazing season and move the animals off-site in the winter.
Shepherds also provide water and minerals, monitor the health of the sheep, install electric fences, and manage their herd to ensure vegetation doesn’t become overgrown.
Solar grazing is a win-win for both shepherds and solar companies. It provides work for shepherds and allows them to expand their herd.
Vegetation grows much better around solar panels than in open fields, mostly because the panels create shade that protects the plants from increasingly hot weather and reduces water evaporation, helping the plants to grow even in drought conditions.
In the past solar companies would spend a lot of money mowing the highly productive grass, but the sheep do that naturally and for far less cash than traditional mowing.
Mowing also reduces biodiversity, but rotational grazing increases it.
Sheep poop fertilizes the soil, increasing plant growth and further increasing biodiversity, resulting in healthier sheep.
The sheep grazing on the solar farm are so healthy that the Griers are seeing each ewe having twins every year.
So, more grass means more sheep.
The Grier’s collect wool from their sheep, and sell it to the fabric market.
The more sheep they have, the more wool they sell.
They also sell sheep as breeding stock, sell ‘pastured’ lamb for food, and even hire other shepherds to help them with rotational grazing on other sites.
So a positive cycle develops, with the solar farm not only producing abundant clean energy but also providing a thriving agricultural benefit to its partner farmers.
One of the reasons that the Alberta government gave for pausing renewable projects back in September was a concern that solar farms were taking away prime agricultural land.
All evidence suggests otherwise, that solar farms and agriculture go together like steak and potatoes.
The Future of Solar and Agriculture Together?
As mutually beneficial as solar and agriculture can be when they co-exist, Premier Danielle Smith wants to keep the two separated.
The province has implemented new regulations that ban renewable energy developments on Class 1 and Class 2 agricultural land, “unless the proponent can demonstrate the ability for both crops and or livestock to coexist with the renewable generation project,” Premier Danielle Smith said during a press event this week.
Smith stated that the fresh regulations embody an “agriculture first” strategy, prioritizing agricultural land in evaluating proposed renewable electricity projects.
As details of the new regulations are released, it remains to be seen if innovative initiatives like solar grazing will grow in Alberta or be “put out to pasture.”
