This summer, a solar field in Alberta will not only be generating about 40 megawatts of electricity each sunny day but also producing eggs, honey, meat and wool.
There are 110,000 solar panels on the 130 hectares of land, in addition to about 400 sheep, 40 pigs and 100 chickens. The bees are arriving soon.
The solar project, which is owned by Edmonton-based Capital Power and located near the town of Strathmore, is beginning to resemble a hobby farm. But for those involved, it’s an important opportunity to test new technology and farming techniques.
As demand for electricity grows every year, this site provides a glimpse into the future of the solar industry in Canada.
The chickens arrived this week and began laying eggs inside their new home, a mobile coop that slowly moves between the long rows of panels.
The structure is a self-propelled pasture barn designed by UKKÖ Robotics, a Manitoba-based startup. The concept is to house animals in a building, while providing fresh grass to graze and spreading the manure evenly on the land. Multiple times a day, the coop slowly moves a small distance, usually half a metre at a time.
The company has installed 50 of the roaming structures around the world, but this is the first time it will operate on a solar site.
“If it does work, I think there’s some great applications throughout North America because this is underutilized agricultural land,” said Daniel Badiou, co-founder and CEO of UKKÖ Robotics.
As the solar industry has expanded, especially in Alberta, rural landowners have raised concerns about the impact on farmland.
Those critiques are in part why the Alberta and Ontario governments have introduced new rules that restrict solar panel development on prime agricultural land and require solar operators to include some type of agriculture, depending on the quality of the land.
But sheep farmer Janna Grier said she thinks solar farming and regular farming can actually go hand in hand. She’s the co-founder of Solar Sheep, and this is the fourth summer that she’ll manage the vegetation at this solar field.
“Our vision is essentially farming under every panel,” said Grier, who began by using sheep and has expanded to test out on other animals.
“We want to kind of prove the concept that we can raise more protein and more local food per acre,” she said.
“There’s a ton of solar development going on throughout the province, and so we’re just trying to keep that land in agriculture. But we’re also trying to keep it and leave it in a better place than when we started.”
The bees will also be part of testing new technology, as they will be housed in a predator-proof, climate-controlled building that’s similar in size to a garden shed. The mobile indoor apiary is designed and built by Bee Cube, a Calgary startup.
Instead of housing one hive in a box, the Bee Cube building can house up to 20 hives. So far, seven of the structures have been built, including the one at the solar field.
Each building has sensors to monitor temperature, humidity, weight and the sound of the bees.
“All that data goes to a database so that beekeepers will know what’s going on inside their hives at any given time,” said Herman Van Reekum, founder and CEO of Bee Cube.
The next step will be integrating artificial intelligence to provide early warnings and management tips. The technology is aimed at improving bee health, while also saving time for beekeepers.
At the solar field, the bees will not only produce honey; they’ll help pollinate the various types of flowering plants.
“It’s going to be a great learning experience,” Van Reekum said. “Bees are dying at unbelievable rates, and so we’re trying to do something about that through this kind of rethinking how beekeeping is done.”
The main objective of the Strathmore solar field, located about 40 kilometres east of Calgary, is to generate electricity, but the agricultural activities are nonetheless important, said Wade Heuscher, solar manager for Capital Power, the power generator that owns the project.
The company is beginning a 10-year soil-testing program to better understand how the livestock, rotational grazing and vegetation management are impacting the soil conditions.
“One of the common issues is that we’ve taken this land and we’ve made it into a solar farm, and it’s now not usable for anything else. We’re showing that there’s a difference here,” Heuscher said.
“This is the way of the future. I think this is a partnership that all solar providers should be looking at doing.”
The goal of ‘farming under every panel’
