ASGA Call 79 – Barriers to Agrivoltaics Growth: Initial Findings from the SI2 Solar + Farms Survey

The Solar and Storage Industries Institute (SI2)‘s Shawn Rumery presented the fascinating early results from their Solar + Farms survey. The survey offered an opportunity for farmers and solar developers to share their experiences with and opinion of agrivoltaics.

Watch the recording for a wealth of important findings from the survey. We’ll highlight a few major takeaways from his presentation for ASGA members:

• Solar companies see permitting in farmland areas as the biggest hurdle to getting sites built, which can be costly to companies especially if the project is stopped. At the same time, nearly half of solar company respondents indicated over half their site opportunities would be on farmland and another quarter of respondents expect 25-50% of their projects to be on farmland.
• A majority of farmers were more likely to host solar sites on farmland if the site was being solar grazed and a majority of developers believed grazing could be implemented on sites easily or somewhat easily.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg – check out the recording for the rest!

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More information about the project

In late 2022, The U.S. Department of Energy Solar Energy Technologies Office injected $8 million into the study of various aspects of Agrivoltaics as part of their Foundational Agrivoltaic Research for Megawatt Scale (FARMS) funding program. One of the six awards was made to SI2, who is using the funding to support the aforementioned survey and case study research. This research will ultimately inform the creation of a series of agrivoltaics best practice guides for farmers, solar developers, and policy makers.

About the Speaker

Shawn Rumery: As Senior Program Director, Shawn leads SI2’s programmatic initiatives, with a portfolio including research and analysis activities around siting and permitting, interconnection, agrivoltaics and workforce development. He also plays a leading role in shaping the organization’s external affairs strategy.

Prior to SI2, Shawn spent 13 years at the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), where he helped lead the organization’s research and analytical work. As part of this role, Shawn was a lead author on the SEIA/Wood Mackenzie U.S. Solar Market Insight Report series, as well as SEIA’s Solar Means Business annual report. His policy analysis directly supported a number of successful solar industry advocacy efforts, including the extension of the Investment Tax Credit in 2015 and passage of the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022.

Before SEIA, Shawn worked as a survey researcher at the University of Illinois at Chicago and spent time as a student affairs consultant for the Wroclaw University of Economics in Wroclaw, Poland.