Farms, Farming & Solar Energy
Agriculture and energy enter into an untested and wary coexistence in rural Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana.
photographs Allison McAdams
As the U.S. moves away from fossil fuels in response to climate change, the challenge of siting renewable generating systems takes on increased urgency. Coal, oil, and natural gas are “energy dense”—each unit of fuel delivers a lot of power and fossil-based generating facilities require relatively compact sites. (Ditto for nuclear energy.)
By comparison, energy density for renewables is low, particularly for solar, requiring far more space to match fossil or nuclear generation. That’s why utility-scale solar arrays cover vast expanses of land.
Of course there’s plenty of open land in rural areas. The ideal land for large-scale solar capacity is flat with good sunlight, much like the ideal land for crop production. But wait: Farmland is a critical asset. Without farms and farmers life would be pretty miserable, to say the least.
Despite that too-familiar truth, though, most of us don’t spend much time worrying about running out of farmland.
Contrast that with worrying about energy—a topic that’s much in the news and weighted with doomsday projections. For many, solar power is held as central for world energy generation.
Many people view land in rural areas as “undeveloped” and industrial investments mean money—after all, “developed” land provides tax revenue for schools, roads, and community projects. Nothing wrong with that. And farmland is privately owned. If a farmer wants to sell or lease property, who’s to say no?
Thus begins a cycle that on the one hand is a business deal, but on the other presents consequences. All forms of renewable energy make demands on agriculture, but solar is different. Corn grown for ethanol, after all, still requires productive, fertile land. Cattle can graze around wind towers. But solar conversions can require grading, mowing, herbicides, drainage, and trenching for hard infrastructure and cabling and wiring, impacts that are hard to reverse. With solar projects, prime farmland can be lost forever. It may seem far in the future but is there a tipping point, and for whom?
Here are some big-picture numbers on farmland usage in the U.S.:
USDA Statistics Service estimates that in 2022 there were 2,002,700 farms, down 9,350 from 2021. Total farmland was 893,400,000 acres, down 1,900,000 acres from 2021. The average farm was 446 acres.
Ohio had 76,500 farms (per the USDA) in 2022, covering 13.1 million acres, down 400,000 acres from 2021; with an average size of 171 acres, down 5 acres vs. 2021.
In Kentucky, in 2024, according to Kentucky Food and Farm, there are 69,425 farms averaging 179 acres in size.
Indiana had 14.6 million acres in agriculture in 2023 (per the USDA).
According to the Indiana-based Richard G. Lugar Center for Renewable Energy, energy companies will pay $200 to $1,600 per acre per year for solar leases, depending on location and type of equipment. If you take the average—$900/acre—multiplied by 300 acres, for example, that’s $270,000 per year in lease payments. For farmers—for anyone—that’s a sum likely hard to resist.
Solar projects in Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana can be tracked via public databases: The Ohio Power Siting Board maintains the Solar Case Status map, which lists projects over 50 megawatts (MW). The Board does not review smaller “community projects,” which are reviewed within local zoning authorities; some rural communities don’t have zoning rules.
Kentucky’s Energy & Environment Cabinet maintains two listings. One is the Kentucky Solar Projects and County/Municipal Solar/Ordinances. This presents so-called “merchant projects,” i.e., private investor projects over 10 MW that sell energy directly to wholesale markets. Public utility projects are listed within the Power Plant Profile Dashboard.
Indiana’s databases are similar to Kentucky’s, with separate lists for utility and non-utility projects. Not all projects will be approved as proposed; some may be rejected, cancelled, or never built.
In the Spotlight
In Clermont County, OH, at the juncture of Jackson, Williamsburg, and Batavia Townships, 2 miles northwest of Williamsburg, the Clear Mountain Energy Center solar project encapsulates the difficult and often contentious issues surrounding farmland and solar. For Clear Mountain, decisive Siting Board actions are due this summer and a public meeting was scheduled for August 1, 2024.
Clear Mountain seeks to build a 152 MW generation system with battery storage on a total footprint of 1,226 acres. Clear Mountain is owned by Savion, based in Kansas City, MO. Savion is a Shell Group portfolio company.
Solar panels and batteries will cover 565 acres, currently used to grow hay, corn, and soybeans. Power will go to a Duke Energy transmission line and to the regional transmission grid. Clear Mountain writes in its application to the Ohio Power Siting Board (the public version) that this power will meet a “high demand for energy generation from a growing commercial and industrial sector.” Clear Mountain’s application states that “currently, there are no plans to add additional electric power generation units.”
Joe Speeg is a Jackson Township Trustee who is also serving as the lead Trustee for the three impacted townships. In an interview, Speeg was asked about concerns that Clear Mountain, if approved, will draw interest from other solar developers.
Speeg said the concern in Jackson Township is that Clear Mountain might initiate projects from other sponsors. He noted recent upgrades to a Duke Energy distribution line. Residents of Jackson Township ask about separate, follow-on projects below the Siting Board’s review level. Smaller projects could claim 100 acres here, another 250 acres nearby, eventually leading to a scattered buildout far beyond Clear Mountain’s initial footprint. “Many people have concerns that, once you’ve got an initial project and infrastructure, then it just continues to evolve,” Speeg says.
For solar neighbors, aesthetics are a big complaint. Another concern is noise from transformers, usually not an issue with solar at night. But Clear Mountain includes batteries, implying 24-hour operations at industrial scale. Ohio’s Siting Board requires an operational noise assessment. Local zoning, though, might not make that demand. Speeg said that small projects connect more easily into local distribution lines, raising additional issues of safety and grid performance. “Local officials,” Speeg says, “are trying to figure out how to deal with this.”
Hal Herron, a Jackson Township Trustee and a farmer, says that solicitations for solar land sales or leases, combined with regular market dynamics, are driving up land prices in the Township. That makes it difficult for farmers to buy land to expand farming operations.
Working for Compromise
Considering the irreplaceable value of farmland and the value of energy, many people ask: Can these resources coexist? Can farmland be used for agriculture even with solar equipment?
These questions have led to a new field called “agrivoltaics.” The USDA, for example, has a website dedicated to advancing agrivoltaics. Ohio State University recently completed a 2-year study demonstrating hay production between rows of solar panels; that study is entering a second phase.
Agrivoltaics is important for Clear Mountain, which is aware of citizens’ concerns. According to presentation materials, Clear Mountain says it will consider dual land-use practices: for example, forage crops and bee keeping linked to pollinator plantings. Grazing sheep may be possible. Clear Mountain “expects to incorporate these best practices in portions of the project area, possibly in rotation with other ground cover plantings and land management practices, as appropriate.” Savion, Clear Mountain’s parent company, is working with Ohio State’s agrivoltaics research.
One of Ohio’s first agrivoltaic projects will start in Warren County, at the Cincinnati Zoo’s 600-acre Bowyer Farm. The Zoo has built a 30 MW solar generating system covering 140 acres, ready to be switched on at the end of August. The same landscape will be home for 250–300 sheep, a working herd that, by grazing around the solar panels, will keep the grass in check; vegetation, if high enough to touch the panels, can impede electrical flow.
Brady Kirwan and Amanda Wilson are the husband and wife team in charge of the sheep. Kirwan and Wilson live in Hillsboro, OH, and will commute to Warren County. Kirwan was thoughtful about the hard choices inherent in farming. He said farmers in his area are regularly contacted by representatives from solar projects and it’s not easy to ignore offers of dependable income and new opportunities.
“I’m a farmer,” Kirwan says after thinking about this complex, sometimes unanswerable mix. “I want to farm and grow food for my community. But there is no viable way to start as new farmers when land costs roughly $10,000/acre. We’ve been farming full time for 5 years. This solar project is an opportunity for us; it allows us to keep working as farmers.”
Agrivoltaics might allow other farmers to keep working as farmers.
Dale Arnold is Director of Energy Policy for the Ohio Farm Bureau Federation (OFBF), working closely on energy and ag issues. Arnold notes that energy debates that impact rural areas go beyond solar. Demand for land remains strong from traditional energy sectors—gas, oil, and related pipelines and rights-of-way—as well as from retail, housing, commercial, and industry, particularly around cities.
Arnold emphasizes that solar is just one renewable energy sector with extensive implications for rural communities. Controlling CO2, for example, will require new infrastructure and pipelines for transport and deep well storage. Ditto for hydrogen transport and storage, as well as demands for geothermal and nuclear siting, and demands for fuels like biodiesel and for aviation. These cumulative pressures, Arnold says, are restarting statewide debates about Ohio’s land use, topics not updated for 30 years.
Like Speeg, Arnold also cites concerns about piecemeal impacts. Using Ohio as an example, the Siting Board’s centralized process can give a sense of oversight and coordination. But Arnold notes that smaller projects only require local zoning reviews. The possibility of scattered, disconnected projects regulated—or not—with varying terms and conditions raises farmland, energy, and environmental questions, and who will take on these questions in the public’s interest.
“We’ve been parties of record for 100 cases on renewable energy development,” Arnold says, “and we’ve strived in working on stipulations and orders, protecting the farm’s ground, subsurface, compaction, vegetative management—all those things that have to be carefully considered in each project.” The Farm Bureau has an attorney referral network which helps ensure that long-term leases are protective of farmland, that it retains its value when reclaimed by children and grandchildren in 30 to 40 years. Arnold says that energy regulation and law are different than other types of law: “I tell farmers, ‘Don’t sign a lease of this magnitude on the hood of your pickup truck.’”
Arnold says the Farm Bureau generally supports agrivoltaics. But he asks: “Where did the term come from? Not farming and agriculture, but the energy industry.”
He notes that initial projects in East Coast states have been small. Now, in the Midwest, projects are taking over hundreds and thousands of acres. That scale-up, Arnold says, needs to be studied and understood. Many questions remain—property access, workers’ safety, barns and shelter, and harvesting techniques, to name a few.
Finally, Arnold refers to business and marketing questions. The skills and equipment a farmer needs to grow 500 acres of corn and soybeans might not be transferrable to smaller plots for vegetables or fruit vines arranged around solar panels. Ditto for switching to new or different livestock. Additionally, if offsite support services—from veterinarians to feed supplies, to equipment to transportation logistics—are missing or develop too slowly, the ag portion of agrivoltaic will struggle.
With these complex issues there’s no free lunch. Of course without farming, there’s no lunch. n
Agrivoltaics
Growing between (or under) the rows
Global corporations are moving into the area faster than state policy can keep up. Most solar developers sign land leases with private landowners and are often outside the purview of government — pitting neighbor against neighbor in the tug-of-war over energy needs and rural life.
The coexistence of farming and solar energy is somewhat new to the U.S. but has been researched and developed more extensively in Europe where less land is available. While more costly for solar developers to install, there are available solutions for dual use of land.