Hartford Business Journal

10 HARTFORDBUSINESS.COM | JULY 22, 2024 Hillview Farm owner Natalie Cohen (center) grazes her sheep at a solar farm in Enfield. The solar farm is owned by West Hartford-based Verogy, which uses the sheep to maintain the site's lawn. Also pictured are Verogy leaders Brad Parsons (left) and Bryan Fitzgerald (right). HBJ PHOTOS | STEVE LASCHEVER The Rise of Agrivoltaics A CT solar farm has sheep grazing under its photovoltaic panels; Here's why it could become more common By Harriet Jones Hartford Business Journal Contributor "G ood girl! Get back!" Natalie Cohen whis- tles to her dog Jill, an 18-month-old Australian Kelpie, as the animal rounds behind a small flock of 15 sheep, bringing them running back under the long solar panel arrays in this 25-acre Enfield site owned by solar developer Verogy. "This is the part the sheep excel at," she said, "grazing under the panels." Cohen owns Hillview Farm in Ellington, and she just trucked these sheep from the farm to begin the process of grazing this newly oper- ational site. This is the business of agrivoltaics — colocating agriculture with solar panel fields that are now popping up around Connecticut and across the country. Cohen says, particularly in densely settled states like Connecticut, it's an innovation that's beneficial to farms. "With the squeeze in development, we've lost that access to pasture for livestock purposes," she said. "You don't see that much agricultural production — between that, expenses and other inputs. So, this actually allows us to have a foot in the market with having sheep in New England." Cohen gets access to prime pastureland and is paid by Verogy to graze her sheep. What does the solar company get? The answer — mowing. "Five years ago, you'd just have big landscape mowers running through here, maintaining the grass," said Bryan Fitzgerald, Verogy's development director. "They actually do a very good job," he says of his hairy coworkers. "They get in all the little areas, all the little tight spots where you'd have to have specialized equipment, or somebody would have to go and do it by hand." Managing controversy This is Cohen's second project with Verogy. Her sheep have been grazing one of the company's sites in East Windsor since 2021. And she's committed to expand her flock into four more Verogy projects in Connecticut as they get permissions and are developed. Verogy's promotion of colocating farming and solar is a direct chal- lenge to the criticisms that have been leveled at renewable energy companies. Several solar sites in East Windsor have caused a lot of contro- versy among neighbors who complain of noise pollution, and last year, in testimony to the Connecticut Siting Council, East Windsor First Selectman Jason Bowsza accused solar compa- nies of "gobbling up prime farmland." And the grazing projects do not dispel Bowsza's concerns. "The notion of putting a flock of sheep on a solar power plant and saying that's in some way an agricul- tural use is pretty disingenuous," he said. "The vast majority of the use of the land is for a commercial activity, which is the generation of electricity for sale." Grid-scale solar that uses any agricultural land is governed by a 2017 law that says the state Depart- ment of Agriculture must "represent in writing that the project will not materially affect the land's status as prime farmland." "Generally, what we've seen in terms of the agriculture piece is that the Department of Agriculture is encouraging co-use of the solar facility site with an agricultural activity," said Melanie Bachman, executive director of the Connecticut Siting Council, which regulates grid- scale solar projects. "And therein lies your sheep grazing." But Bowsza calls the Connecticut Siting Council's approach "tone-deaf." "I feel, 100 percent, the Siting Council should be required to consider concerns raised by munic- ipal officials in the siting of these projects, because they don't do that at all now," he said. Bachman disagrees. "The munici- palities have rights to request party status," she said. "They can submit comments on the project itself, and CT has lost 15% of its farms over past decade 2012 2017 2022 NUMBER OF CT FARMS 5,977 5,521 5,058 LAND IN FARMS (ACRES) 436,539 381,539 372,014 AVERAGE FARM SIZE (ACRES) 73 69 74 U.S. Department of Agriculture Census of Agriculture State Profile

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