Overview of Sheep Grazing on Solar Farms[edit | edit source]
Overview of what it is
Highlight Environmental/Social Benefits (CO2 reductions, increased utilization of land, How it is better for sheep - grass fed, no factory farming, limit exports and growth lamb economy in Canada, could bring down the price of lamb)
How this will help grow adoption of Solar technology (utilization, cost efficiencies)
Methods[edit | edit source]
Layout Costs, CAPEX, labor, insurance, fencing (find references)
Suppliers
Input Parameters
Output Parameters
Profit, Income per acre/m^2
Sensitivity
Inflation, meat value analysis
Tables
Goal: prove we can make more from sheep than crop
Find government funding (analyze government perspective)
Source Documents[edit | edit source]
Handler, R., & Pearce, J. M. (2022). Greener sheep: Life cycle analysis of integrated sheep agrivoltaic systems. Cleaner Energy Systems, 3, 100036. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2772783122000358
Kampherbeek, E. W., Webb, L. E., Reynolds, B. J., Sistla, S. A., Horney, M. R., Ripoll-Bosch, R., ... & McFarlane, Z. D. (2023). A preliminary investigation of the effect of solar panels and rotation frequency on the grazing behavior of sheep (Ovis aries) grazing dormant pasture. Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 258, 105799.https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0168159122002593
Andrew, A. C. (2020). Lamb growth and pasture production in agrivoltaic production system. https://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/concern/honors_college_theses/v405sh87r
Kochendoerfer, N., & Thonney, M. L. (2021). Grazing sheep on solar sites in New York State: Opportunities and challenges. Scope and scaling-up of the NYS sheep industry to graze ground-mounted photovoltaic arrays for vegetation management., Cornell University Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future, Ithaca, NY. https://agrisolarclearinghouse.org/wp-content/uploads/info-library/agrisolar-info/solar-grazing/solar-suitable-grazing-animals/Grazing%20Sheep%20on%20Solar%20Sites%20in%20NY%20State_Opportunities%20and%20Challenges.pdf
Sharpe, K. T., Heins, B. J., Buchanan, E. S., & Reese, M. H. (2021). Evaluation of solar photovoltaic systems to shade cows in a pasture-based dairy herd. Journal of Dairy Science, 104(3), 2794-2806. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022030220310730
https://solargrazing.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Atkinson-Center-Full-Report.pdf
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?start=10&q=sheep+agrivoltaics&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5
