Encore CEO Chad Farrell participated in a panel session at the first ever EUCI professional development event focused on agrivoltaics, or the collocation of energy generation resources and agricultural land uses. Chad provided case studies focused on the benefits of pollinator friendly ground cover and sheep grazing as a means of vegetative maintenance for two existing ground-mounted Encore solar projects. Farrell’s remarks focused on the use of agrivoltaics to increase the deployment of solar energy while at the same time minimizing the environmental impacts of community and utility scale solar projects while maximizing ecosystem services such as carbon sequestration, soil quality improvements and surface water retention.
The symposium included other speakers from the agricultural community, academia, finance and other businesses like seed suppliers and installation contractors and also provided perspectives regarding the burgeoning field of agrivoltaics from different geographies and climates across the United States and beyond.