A pilot program in Virginia is testing variations in farmland use that combine crops and solar installations, with the potential to give agricultural producers and rural communities a boost during difficult times.
According to CleanTechnica, the Piedmont Environmental Council in Virginia began developing this half-acre demonstration project long before it was named "Plan of the Year" as a part of the 2025 North American Agrivoltaics Awards.
Agrivoltaics is the shared use of land for both farming and solar energy generation. The NAAA described PEC's pilot as a "deeply strategic installation that could have statewide ripple effects," per CleanTechnica.
Many agrivoltaic projects in the United States dedicate the land beneath solar arrays as pollinator habitats, growing native grasses and other vegetation. Insects and birds promote the growth of major crops like apples, tomatoes, and blueberries while contributing to biodiversity.
Other sites enable livestock to graze under the panels, where the animals enjoy some shade and provide landscaping services that reduce maintenance costs for landowners.
Pairing solar energy generation with crop production represents the smallest portion of agrivoltaic sites in the country — as of 2024, just 35 in the U.S. — but the PEC's Roundabout Meadows project could help turn that tide.
"Intended as a demonstration site and proof-of-concept for multiple applications, we've designed the 42-panel solar panel installation with four rows of vegetables directly in the ground to mimic a traditional farm setup," PEC described, per CleanTechnica.
The group said it also included crops planted in raised beds. Acknowledging to Canary Media that this does come with some additional costs, PEC community farm manager Teddy Pitsiokos told the outlet that the team wants to learn about modified applications "for people who might be doing this in an urban setting, a parking lot, or on some other nonpermeable surface."
In 2024, data shared by the National Renewable Energy Lab showed that 62,000 acres of agrivoltaic sites were producing 10 gigawatts of solar energy. The Department of Energy has projected that solar energy could provide 1 terawatt of electricity-generating capacity to the grid by 2035 — but it would require 5.7 million acres of land that would also be desirable for agricultural use.
Through research and development, this valuable land could be shared to increase energy generation and food production. This could also be presented as a revenue-generating opportunity for farmers facing pressing issues such as tariffs, inflation, worker shortages, and extreme weather.
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Lower energy bills 💸 A similar program from Rutgers University in New Jersey operates three sites across the state, where it seeks to optimize solar projects in conjunction with key crops to find the optimal balance for each pairing.
Securing sustainable methods of food and energy production is crucial to our future, and the PEC understands the full scope of its efforts. Rising global temperatures are affecting today's crops, while AI-driven data centers are consuming huge amounts of energy to power and cool their operations.
Pitsiokos is concerned with another kind of data, though. As he told Canary Media about what PEC hopes to learn from the experiment, "We want to share it with everybody, because we know that we can't predict who might benefit from it exactly."
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