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Solar Farm + Agriculture = Agrivoltaics
To make our solar farms more sustainable, Pristine Sun looks for ways to jointly use the land for solar energy production and agriculture — a concept known as agrivoltaics. Agrivoltaics is an efficient and innovative win-win in land usage.
Our agrivoltaic solutions might include:
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Planting crops between or under the solar panels. Potential crops include herbs, fresh greens, lavender, potatoes, alfalfa, yams, cassava, and taro.
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Planting wildflowers for bees to produce honey (apiculture).
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Planting native, drought-tolerant wildflowers and grasses for grazing livestock.
Sheep graze at our 1.6 MW Terzian Sheep Ranch Project in Fresno County, California.
Donald the Donkey’s role is to protect the sheep from dogs and coyotes. Pristine “employs” two donkeys at its grazing projects to look after the sheep — and keep each other company.
Pollinators are essential to food production, and solar bee farms offer an innovative way to provide bees food and shelter. Pictured is our 1 MW Stroing Bee Farm Project in Tehama County, California.
Sustainable Water Ways
For projects that require water — such as grazing projects — even our water ways are sustainable. We can:
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Drill a well to access water using an all-electric, solar-powered pump.
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Install commercial irrigation sprinklers.
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Run a waterline underneath each long row of solar panels on trackers to cool the panels during the day to increase solar output (this is Pristine Sun’s proprietary system). The water is cooled in a close-looped system, then used at night in the sprinkler system.
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Run the sprinklers around dusk. The water runs off the solar panels and drips down into the crops.