Striking a balance between solar and agriculture can be achieved, the executive director of the North Carolina Sustainable Energy Association told an audience gathered for the 2024 SolarFest at the Center for Energy Education today.

The remarks by Matt Abele tied into this year’s festival theme — Solar and agriculture: Growing together.

Organized in 1978, Abele said the NCSEA has seen quite a bit of change in the clean energy industry since that time. “We’ve seen quite a bit of growth in the clean energy industry over that period of time. It really started to take off in North Carolina in the early 2000s.”

There are more than 105,000 people working in clean energy across the state, he said, and the state is number one in the country for clean energy jobs. 

On the topic of solar coexisting with agriculture, Abele said. “It’s been an amazing, amazing experiment to see this continue to grow and to see agriculture and solar coexist.”

There are almost 50,000 solar projects that have been installed in the state, he said. “They consist of small projects you see on somebody’s house to the solar you see on the roof of a business to projects that you see just out here.”

In Halifax County, he said there are a total of 32 projects. Of those, 13 are considered utility scale solar on 10 or more acres. 

“There’s concern that solar is taking over farmland all across the state of North Carolina,” Abele said. “That is a valid concern because North Carolina is a major exporter of so many crops that have helped to spur the economy in this part of the state. We want to make sure that we’re preserving farmland, that we’re preserving jobs, and we really stay true to who we are as North Carolinians.”

Discussing the data, he told the audience NCSEA has done a number of analyses in partnership with the department of agriculture to better understand how much farmland across the state is occupied by utility scale solar projects. “Surprisingly, or maybe not so surprisingly to those folks who live this every day, it’s a very, very small percentage of farmland that is actually being occupied by solar across the state.”

He said .28 percent of agricultural land is occupied by solar. “You can compare that to low density housing developments, which is about 10 percent of the farmlands in North Carolina that are being developed for low density housing projects.”

Solar, he said, is a very small percentage of redevelopment activity that has happened in this part of the state.

When talking about agricultural land loss across the state, 78 percent of the land that is being lost for farming production is associated with low density housing development. “As you drive by solar farms you might think this is taking over everything but in fact, compared to some other redevelopment activity, it’s a relatively small piece of the pie.”

Tax benefits

These projects bring a lot of benefits to the counties where they are being developed, Abele said.

On average, NCSEA sees a 1,682 percent increase in property tax revenue over what was previously being paid. “Average increases in property taxes in counties across the state from solar development is about $146,000. That’s really significant especially in parts of the state where we lost jobs, we lost businesses and we need revenue to reinvest in roads, infrastructure, first responders, schools. This is a huge, huge revenue for many counties across the state of North Carolina.”

For people who live next to a solar farm, Abele said a number of studies conducted in North Carolina and across the country have shown property values see no diminished impact, “which is hugely significant because I know if I lived next to a solar farm, I would be concerned about my property value. But in fact, time after time, we see that there’s no impact on values.”

Benefits to property owner

In speaking with landowners in eastern North Carolina and other parts of the state, Abele told the audience, “It can be really, really tough to be a farmer dealing with changes in climate, droughts, flooding, and have predictable income year after year.”

In some cases, landowners are leasing their land for $75 an acre per year to grow crops, but landowners who are leasing their land out for solar could be leasing out that land for $1,000 to $1,500 an acre a year and have predictable income coming in for 10 to 25 years. “So you’re looking at a 10 to 15 times return financially on that land by having solar there as well.”

He said, however, he believes there is a false notion that it has to be an and/or. “That’s the theme of today’s presentation, which is that solar and agriculture can coexist with one another.”

Pointing to the sheep brought by Lewis Brothers Land Management of Halifax to graze on the solar farm next to the center, Abele said, “We’re seeing sheep-grazing taking place on property where solar exists. We’re also seeing a concept known as agro voltaics in which you have modules that are elevated off the ground and (you) are actually able to grow crops right underneath.”

With agro voltaics, he said, “You can get that double benefit from growing the crops, making money for growing the crops, and also making money from leasing out your property for solar. This has been demonstrated all across the country. It’s being demonstrated here in North Carolina and it is a good model for us to be looking moving forward to ensure that we continue to produce the crops that we need in North Carolina and across the country, especially with North Carolina being such a large exporter of things like sweet potatoes, hogs. It’s so important that we’re thinking about how we utilize this land to its maximum potential value and agro voltaics are a great way to do that.”

Decommissioning

One of the longstanding arguments against solar is the future impacts on lands when the panels are decommissioned.

“There are lots of studies because that is one of the most common objections when you hear about these projects,” Abele said.

Most of the contracts were signed under agreements lasting 15 to 25 years. “As a landowner, if you decide you no longer want that on your property you can return the land to its original value because all you’re doing is pulling steel out of the ground. It’s not like you’re developing over concrete and putting in homes. You can start farming on that land.”

In the modules that are installed now, he said, there are no instances of chemicals leaching into the groundwater. “The industry has been really dedicated to thinking about full-lifecycle modules. The industry has really innovated and one of the things we do when these modules reach the end of their life … we have a couple of solar panel recyclers that are here in the state — that are collecting these modules from the project when they’re done and are able to recover more than 90 percent of the material that goes into the modules to reuse those into other solar modules moving forward. It’s been really exciting to see on the innovation side to make sure these modules just don’t end up in a landfill.”

Reginald Bynum Jr., C4EE community outreach manager, said decommissioning often takes the forms of documents drafted by county officials and are secured by bonds to make sure if a solar company goes defunct or when the project retires that there’s funding available to remove the equipment. “However, during that time, they do research on the land. They look at after year one how the land looks, year five to seven how does the land look, year 10 to 15 how does the land look? Typically by the end of the term you’ll see that the land is fully restored. There is some disturbance when you initially build a farm but over time you’ll see the land kind of revitalizes based on the treatment of the soil.”

Agro voltaics, Bynum said, is the way to go because the sheep fertilizes the soil and they build the topsoil up a lot quicker. “That’s why I push agro voltaics hard because having the sheep is more of a natural way. It gets away from the chemical use.”

Lewis Brothers

Samuel and Jackson Lewis brought their sheep to the center for the festival to demonstrate agro voltaics.

They currently don’t have any solar grazing contracts, Jackson said. “We’ve been raising livestock our whole lives. We’ve worked on goat farms, sheep farms, cow farms, and hogs. We’ve done a wide variety.”

Jackson is a nurse and Samuel is a Rocky Mount firefighter.

“We’ve done a ton of research this past year when we decided to really try to get into this and we feel like we’ve figured out a way to rotationally graze these sheep to the solar farms to effectively manage the vegetation with very minimal mechanical means,” Jackson said.

Jackson said this is important because “we’re in an agricultural community. The first thing you hear about is farmland going to solar farms. Not everybody is a fan of it. This is a way for us to connect solar farms back to the farming community and get a dual use out of this land.”

There’s less emissions because you’re not using mowers. “We bring sheep out to a solar farm, the way we have it planned out, the percentage is going to be less than 10 percent the whole year.”

The brothers are currently spreading the word about their business. “It’s very popular in other states,” Samuel said. “They say it’s super difficult to get started but as soon as you get started that’s when you really take off. If you get one solar farm and you prove that it’s a good thing then everyone wants to buy into it.”

Jackson said Georgia, Virginia, New York, Indiana and Tennessee have found success in solar grazing. “Texas just signed a big contract with a farmer out there doing thousands of acres. It’s like everywhere but North Carolina it has caught on, but we had the idea so in this area we’re about the only one that I can find and there’s one person in the western part of the state that does it.”

The brothers can set up conferences, presentations and teach classes. “Managing a solar farm is just like managing our pasture,” Jackson said. “We manage it the same way.”

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