Ag Industry Looks at Ways for Renewable Energy and Farmland to Coexist

Sunday, May 7th, 2023 -- 8:20 AM

(By Joe Schulz, Wisconsin Public Radio) As renewable energy generation grows, the agriculture industry has voiced concerns about it driving up the cost of quality farmland.

According to Joe Schulz with Wisconsin Public Radio, that’s why some Wisconsin researchers are looking at ways the two industries can coexist. "Agrivoltaics," the use of land for both agriculture and solar power, was at the center of a panel with a regulator and researchers recently hosted by the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies.

The discussion was broadcast on WisconsinEye. The panel explored potential trade-offs between renewable energy and agriculture, as well as discussed how one of the biggest agrivoltaics research facilities in the country will be coming to Wisconsin.

"The transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy is well underway. In Wisconsin and all around the world, choices are being made about where and how we build the energy systems (of) the future," said Josh Arnold, campus energy advisor for the UW-Madison Office of Sustainability. "The pace and the scale of this transition is happening very quickly, and the impacts are rippling across the landscape."

Stacy Schumacher, a policy advisor for the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin, has witnessed the transition to renewables firsthand. She said the total acreage for solar panels, either approved or currently being looked at by the Public Service Commission, is almost 30,000 acres for 4,176 megawatts.

But the state needs between 240,000 and 285,000 acres of solar farms to meet carbon-free goals by 2050, according to a recent report from Clean Wisconsin. One of the major concerns farmers have about the renewable transition is that it could reduce access to quality land, said Diane Mayerfeld, sustainable agriculture coordinator for UW-Extension.

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