Siting Solar Farms—Unique Opportunities beyond the Sunny Desert

Four of the largest US solar farms are located in California and Nevada – areas of dry and sunny climates One of the largest in the world even has ‘desert’ in its name: Tengger Desert Solar Park in China. While it is inarguable that placing solar farms in the parts of the world that have the highest climatological solar resources makes perfect sense, it also overlooks potential opportunities in areas where vegetation is more prevalent. At many solar farms, land has vegetation completely removed and land graded generally to make installment and maintenance easier. But does that have to always be the case? Groups have started to test and use plots of land for both solar energy and other environmentally proactive actions. This can include using the area for livestock to graze, certain crops to grow, or even building new habitats for certain living creatures. In an effort to continue trends of promoting potential growth in solar farms across more agriculturally resourceful land, new research projects are being done to track vegetation using machine learning and AI. By using remote sensing tools to monitor vegetation at solar farms, more tangible and actionable intelligence will be gained on the mutual benefits of solar and agricultural co-location to aid in the proliferation of solar power beyond barren ground.