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Welcome back to Current Climate. Solar continues to have a moment as a fast, cheap way to boost the power supply, particularly as electricity demand surges and the war in Iran triggers price spikes for oil and natural gas. It’s also been finding its way onto farms as beneficial new income source for farmers.

While California is looking to use tens of thousands of acres of fallow agricultural land for massive solar fields, idled by dwindling water supplies, in other parts of the country, solar is being integrated into fields actively growing crops or raising livestock. In the emerging field of agrivoltaics, university and government researchers are finding that solar fits in surprisingly well. Upsides include shading provided by solar panels built over farm fields, spaced to provide sufficient sunlight for crops to grow while shielding them from the day’s most intense sunlight and heat.

The panels also help prevent water from evaporating from the soil, and provide shade for livestock during the hottest times of the day. In exchange, plants growing beneath them emit water vapor that helps cool the panels from below, improving their efficiency, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

A farm near Nashville operated by Solar Ranch is even testing to see if solar panels designed to pivot to capture the maximum amount of sunlight throughout the day can become a big help to cattle ranchers. The 40-acre project in Christiana, Tennessee, is spending the next year determining if, as expected, cattle thrive as well beneath solar panels as different crops do – and if ranchers and dairy farmers are........

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