The scale of livestock grazing in agrivoltaic installations is much larger than previously understood, found the first solar grazing census by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and the American Solar Grazing Association.
Over 113,000 sheep grazed through fields of solar panels on 129,000 acres of land, found the United States Solar Grazing 2024 Census by the U.S. Department of Energy National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and the American Solar Grazing Association (ASGA). The census was the first time a broadly organized effort was dedicated to capturing the full scope and scale of solar grazing in the United States, according to ASGA and NREL.
"The scale of solar grazing in the U.S. is much larger than previously understood and undergoing rapid growth," ASGA and NREL said in the report.
ASGA and NREL attributed the magnitude to a recent exponential expansion of solar grazing in tandem with the rise in installed solar in the U.S. About 18 GW to 26 GW of power per acre were grazed in 2024, ASGA and NREL estimated.
Solar grazing is the most widespread form of agrivoltaics, according to ASGA. Agrivoltaics is the practice of co-locating solar facilities and agricultural production, which provides the landowner not only with two sources of income for one plot of land, but research finds it often benefits the agricultural production, such as healthier soil and food for sheep grazing, and growing conditions for horticultural crops and beekeeping production.
