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Can solar panels over farm fields help us adapt to and fight climate change at the same time? That’s what a new study breaking ground next month will explore.“This study is about agriculture and climate change and how we can create kind of a win-win,” said Susan Phillips, director of the Robert Redford Conservancy at Pitzer College, which is leading the study.The concept is called “agrivoltaics,” a combination of the words “agriculture” and “photovoltaics” — the process of converting light into electricity.There are multiple ways to do agrivoltaics, but the basic idea is that instead of stopping farming to make way for solar, elevated solar panels are installed over crops or livestock operations so electricity generation and farming can happen at the same time, and possibly benefit each other.Support for LAist comes fromBecome a sponsor
Different types of agrivoltaics(Courtesy National Renewable Energy Lab)
While agrivoltaics have been studied in other parts of California, this will be the first study to see how it could work in Southern California. Agrivoltaics have been successful in parts of Europe, China, as well as the U.S., but it’s not happening much here in California…at least not yet.How the study will workThe study will take place on a quarter-acre of land at Spadra Farm at Cal Poly Pomona. Researchers will study how a plot of romaine lettuce grown under the panels fares compared to a plot that is not, over a period of three years. They’ll also have a mobile battery to store the solar energy.They’ll measure things like soil fungus and bacteria, plant nutrients, crop yield, water use, temperature and more.“This is all going to be very relevant to the production of a crop in Southern California, primarily romaine lettuce, which is something that is in demand all year round,” said Rose Olivas, one of the project’s leads.Support for LAist comes fromBecome a sponsor
A key question they aim to answer is how much shade from the panels can lessen water use and improve plant and soil health amid hotter summers driven by climate change.“We’re living in a time of climate crisis, and our seasons for growing are becoming increasingly limited, especially for cold weather crops like romaine lettuce,” said Emily Kuhn, who will be managing the farm during the study. “So part of the goal of this project is to be able to produce crops like romaine lettuce for longer periods of time in the summertime as that stretches longer.”They’ll start installing the solar panels in December and expect to start planting in January.What’s the benefit?Agrivoltaics is happening already, primarily in Europe and China. Research across the world and parts of the U.S. has already found that the s