Viewing Grant Proposal: Regents of the University of Michigan-Growing Power Community Solar

This project is very timely, at a moment when we need to rapidly and exponentially expand renewable energy investments across Michigan (and the country). While there are many worthy solar development projects in the list of projects noted here, this is the only one considering how to expand solar in rural communities. To scale up quickly, we have to locate a large portion of solar arrays on tracts of (flat, open) agricultural land available in rural communities – areas that are being targeted aggressively by major solar investors. The Michigan Growing Power Community Solar would address two key concerns about solar development (and agrivoltaics in particular). First, as has been regularly featured in the news, there has been considerable community pushback in Michigan and around the country for building large solar arrays in rural landscapes. As an urban and regional planning scholar, I believe Michigan communities must be fully engaged in determining where and how to place solar in our communities, but to do so, we need to develop more effective ways of genuinely partnering with farmers and residents in co-designing systems they will embrace and benefit from. As a food systems researcher, I’m also concerned about many of the unexamined assumptions about placing solar energy investment on agricultural land. There is insufficient research about the possible impacts on food production and regional food security, who will benefit (or lose out) economically (including whether/how such investments can be leveraged by farmers who struggle to hold onto their land), or the (positive and potentially negative) environmental impacts. There’s a lot of excitement among environmental researchers and advocates about “agrivoltaics” as a way to combine benefits to farmers and renewable energy growth, but the research on HOW to actually and effectively integrate solar systems onto farms is very thin. The Growing Power Community Solar project would help develop participatory, co-design processes for expanding solar in rural areas and create a valuable agricultural, environmental and economic test bed for answering these many questions, with important implications for future policy design, investment decisions, and on-the-ground practice.

This is a great opportunity on so many levels. We will have a clean working energy producing system. We will have a group of students getting real life experience with the entire process of this project. There is nothing better than clean energy production and learning along the way.

To ensure a cheap, clean, and reliable supply of energy that is produced here in the United States, we need to expand the deployment of solar power. At the same time, we need to ensure that we do not mess up other things we value: our land and food production, either directly by diverting land away from it or by destroying the biodiversity that is essential to it. We must also ensure that we can expand solar generation without trampling on the rights of the people who cherish their land. We do not currently have the knowledge we need to help us do this properly. This project will generate that knowledge, and--as a resident of the state--I welcome and support it.

GLREA supports this Proposal because at a time where we have to increase the amount of electrical power from wind and solar in order to meet the new Renewable Portfolio Standard of 50% by 2030, the need to develop workable models of integrating land use with renewable energy projects has never been more important and very timely. There is a lot of misinformation about the impact of solar and wind projects on land, and this Project can go a long way in developing best practices on how these energy projects can work in harmony with rural and urban farmland. This Growing Power Community Solar, will bring together solid research and information to develop pragmatic workable models that will help support and drive the development of new energy projects that people and communities can get behind. For these reasons the Great Lakes Renewable Energy Association is excited and supports this proposal.

Agriculture and solar is not a zero-sum proposition. It is not ag or solar, it is ag and solar. However, many Michigan citizens are not getting that message. They cannot envision what agrivoltaics looks like. They struggle to see beyond the solar modules to what could be. They are blinded by disinformation and misinformation about solar. Michigan needs this project to help it’s citizens see and understand how they can be fed with crops and livestock grown under and around solar arrays. Just as important, however, this project will help people understand the interaction of wetlands, lakes, and forests with solar. This is important because these ecosystems exist across Michigan and are potential solar development sites. Surrounding all of this research is perhaps the most critical piece, and that is listening to what the community has to say and validating it. If solar projects had led with community engagement first, I think we would be having a different conversation right now. As someone who has spent over a decade working in the agrivoltaic space, I strongly support what this project seeks to accomplish. The Growing Power project is exactly what is needed right now to guide solar development and sustainable land use In Michigan. There aren’t any other projects I am aware of that are as timely and relevant as this one is. Respectfully, this project should be funded in full.

This very important project will be impactful to the entire state, in that it can develop new learning and models for how to bring renewables to rural Michigan in ways that balance ecological, agricultural, and energy needs. Because this site has so many different types of ecosystems (natural as well as agricultural), the learning will be applicable to the variety of geographies in our state. Emerging agrivoltaic research at UM thus far has been excellent in that it is not about how to plop renewables on farmland, but looked from many perspectives at the implications for farmers, other landowners, ecological systems, and local economies— we need this sort of interdisciplinary approach to do our shift to renewables in ways that are respectful and impactful.

Michigan needs this project to help its citizens see and understand how they can be fed with crops and livestock grown under and around solar arrays. Just as important, however, this project will help people understand the interaction of wetlands, lakes, and forests with solar. This is important because these ecosystems exist across Michigan. Surrounding all of this research is perhaps the most critical piece, and that is listening to what the community has to say and validating it. If solar projects had led with community engagement first, I think we would be having a different conversation right now. As someone who has spent over a decade working in the agrivoltaic space, I strongly support what this project seeks to accomplish. The Growing Power project is exactly what is needed right now to guide solar development and sustainable land use In Michigan. There aren’t any other projects I am aware of that are as timely and relevant as this one is. Respectfully, this project should be funded in full.