EGN NEWS DESK
JR Howard of Texas Solar Sheep can’t purchase sheep quick sufficient. He provides them to photo voltaic farms, the place their grazing retains grass quick for lower than the price of mowing it. Demand for his animals has skyrocketed over the previous few years as an increasing number of giant photo voltaic installations are being constructed. Now Howard is scrambling to meet his largest order but: for 6,000 sheep, which will likely be put to work grazing eight Texas photo voltaic fields run by Enel North America.
Howard’s booming enterprise is a type of agrivoltaics, which mixes photo voltaic panels with agriculture or different land makes use of that profit farmers and ecosystems.
Along with renting sheep out to photo voltaic fields, Howard raises them to promote for meat — however solely the males. He wants as many females as he can get to shore up his herds. When he first began his enterprise three years in the past, he had simply 400 sheep on one photo voltaic website. Since then, he’s deployed over 10,000. The growing demand for sheep grazing on photo voltaic farms is “the best alternative for the sheep trade in my lifetime,” Howard instructed Canary Media.
The photo voltaic grazing undertaking with Enel isn’t the primary of its variety, however it will likely be the biggest within the nation. Altogether, Enel’s eight photo voltaic installations occupy a stretch of land practically the scale of Manhattan and at the moment produce 2.6 gigawatts of energy (just a few of the fields are nonetheless within the closing levels of development).
Using sheep as a vegetation upkeep crew is a win-win.
“Ultimately, we’re a enterprise,” mentioned Jesse Puckett, director of sustainability tasks and group affairs at Enel. “This is a technique that we will improve the underside line and construct sustainability into our undertaking.”
The animals are extra environment friendly than garden mowers, since they’ll get into the nooks and crannies underneath panel arrays, Puckett mentioned, although some extra mowing is usually crucial, which Howard’s firm offers together with the sheep. Mowing can be extra prone to kick up rocks or different particles, damaging panels that then should be repaired, including to prices.
Agrivoltaics tasks involving sheep have been proven to enhance the standard of the soil, since their manure is a pure fertilizer. At a photo voltaic set up in Minnesota, the place Enel first began grazing sheep in 2017, the corporate noticed a 200 p.c enchancment in natural matter. Using sheep as an alternative of mowers additionally cuts down on fossil gas use, whereas permitting native vegetation to mature and bloom. Solar tasks that prioritize native plant development have been discovered to extend the biodiversity of vegetation and bugs, like native bees, and to scale back soil erosion.
The sheep profit, too. Shade from photo voltaic panels helps them keep cool, and Howard has discovered they don’t want as a lot water as after they’re grazing on open fields.
