The History
In 2019, Silicon Ranch began exploring the opportunity to marry cattle grazing and solar generation on our land, in line with our commitment to design, build, and operate better solar farms by taking a holistic approach and mimicking nature.
Since our launch of regenerative sheep grazing on our solar farms in 2018 with the help of two ranching partners, in addition to expanding our grazed acreage by contracting with other local ranching partners, we have become the owners of two large flocks of sheep. We employ shepherds on staff who observe our flocks every day and manage them adaptively to maximize animal welfare, ecosystem benefits, and solar generation. Silicon Ranch facilitates agribusiness through its solar projects.
Why Add Cattle Grazing?
Cattle ranching is an important part of our nation’s agricultural identity and heritage, as well as its economy. Being able to co-locate cattle ranching with utility solar in a way that is good for solar generation, good for the land, and good for the animal could provide elevated benefits—environmental, economic, and social—to Americans across the country while supporting an iconic part of U.S. culture and historic land use.
A Response to Lessons Learned
At Silicon Ranch, one of our company core values is that “we listen, learn, and respond.” As our Regenerative Energy program has grown, so has our expertise. We have learned many lessons that have led us to expand and diversify our program methods, in line with our commitment to continuous improvement. We learned some of these lessons by experience, including monitoring and measuring the impacts of our regenerative practices on ecosystems. This provided us with a better understanding of the ecology under a solar system.
One lesson learned is that cattle ranching is an important part of our nation’s agricultural identity and heritage, as well as its economy. There are eight times more cattle ranches than sheep ranches in the U.S. and 17 times more cattle than sheep. At the same time, cattle can move and graze a lot of land. By co-locating cattle ranching and solar energy production, we can help provide a boost for existing and aspiring cattle ranchers similar to the one we are providing to the growing community of shepherds in rural communities across the country.
In short, regenerative cattle grazing on solar farms—that is good for solar generation, good for the land, and good for the animal—can provide elevated benefits—environmental, economic, and social—while supporting a significant facet of U.S. culture and historical land use.
There are eight times more cattle ranches than sheep ranches in the U.S. and 17 times more cattle than sheep.
Solution Must Be Good for Solar Generation, Good for the Land, and Good for the Animal
At its core, integrating cattle grazing on a solar farm is simple—it simply requires increasing the height of the arrays, like we do for carport solar systems. To be viable, however, the design must also allow for reasonable construction costs, ease of maintenance, and durability. It must be scalable. We concluded that our methods for meeting these key requirements must also be good for solar generation, good for the land, and good for the animal, and that we must measure these impacts.
Cabriejo Ranch
The Cabriejo Ranch family, led by accredited Savory Holistic Management Professional Rueben Hendricks, implements the Savory Institute’s Ecological Outcome Verification methodology on select projects to track biodiversity, soil, and ecosystem outcomes.
Tall Oaks Farm and Land Management LLC
Trey Lawrence, a Jackson, Tennessee native, heads up Tall Oaks Farm and Land Management LLC. His extensive experience with and love of both animals and farm management led him to Silicon Ranch and Regenerative Energy. Lawrence’s company provides conventional and regenerative land management services at select projects in the West Tennessee region, including holistic planned grazing and other non-electrical operations and maintenance tasks. In his words, this work is “what he feels like he’s supposed to be doing.”
White Oak Pastures
The White Oak Pastures crew, led by Land Steward, Herdsman, and Savory Holistic Management Professional Will Harris, is pushing the innovation envelope at Silicon Ranch’s Georgia solar farms while conducting Ecological Verified Outcome evaluations on the land they manage to track and measure outcomes.
A Research-and Evidence-Backed Approach
To succeed in this undertaking, therefore, we would have to conduct research and engage in experimentation to find just the right combination of structural strength, array height, and energy production, while also respecting project economics and grazing practices and protocols.
To improve opportunities for cattle ranchers and test and refine our solution, we have teamed up with experts from around the world representing a diverse array of fields and sectors, and are working under the framework of the Department of Energy. This framework provides structure and oversight and ensures that rigor is applied in carrying out this pilot that we call CattleTracker.
Project Details: What is CattleTracker?
CattleTracker is Silicon Ranch’s Integrated Photovoltaic (PV) Solar System Design and Management Platform for the co-optimization of cattle-grazing and PV solar generation while measuring the impacts of these efforts on the surrounding ecosystem dynamics and soil health. Over a period of 39 months, a multidisciplinary team of agrivoltaics experts, animal welfare scientists, regenerative ranchers, and soil and ecosystem scientists are working together to develop, analyze, and optimize two main components of agrivoltaic projects:
1. Cattle co-location on utility scale agrivoltaics projects. Through this study, this team is working to establish an appropriate height and spacing standard for panels on solar projects in a way that is commercially scalable while meeting rigorous animal welfare standards.
2. Ecosystem dynamics of grassland ecosystems and soil nutrient cycles on land housing solar farms. The ultimate goal of this component of the project is to develop a methodology for modeling and verifying ecosystem services and carbon dynamics on utility-scale agrivoltaics projects under different land management strategies, including cattle grazing, sheep grazing, and conventional mowing.
As part of this research, commercial energy and financial models will be rendered for CattleTracker to provide an initial understanding of how this new interdisciplinary technology will meet the needs of existing market demands in both the agriculture and the solar energy sectors. Collaborators will perform field research to this end at an installed and operational 250 kW CattleTracker outdoor test lab.
Cabriejo Ranch
The Cabriejo Ranch family, led by accredited Savory Holistic Management Professional Rueben Hendricks, implements the Savory Institute’s Ecological Outcome Verification methodology on select projects to track biodiversity, soil, and ecosystem outcomes.
Tall Oaks Farm and Land Management LLC
Trey Lawrence, a Jackson, Tennessee native, heads up Tall Oaks Farm and Land Management LLC. His extensive experience with and love of both animals and farm management led him to Silicon Ranch and Regenerative Energy. Lawrence’s company provides conventional and regenerative land management services at select projects in the West Tennessee region, including holistic planned grazing and other non-electrical operations and maintenance tasks. In his words, this work is “what he feels like he’s supposed to be doing.”
White Oak Pastures
The White Oak Pastures crew, led by Land Steward, Herdsman, and Savory Holistic Management Professional Will Harris, is pushing the innovation envelope at Silicon Ranch’s Georgia solar farms while conducting Ecological Verified Outcome evaluations on the land they manage to track and measure outcomes.
Why We Are Working to Co-Optimize Solar Generation and Cattle Grazing
1. To expand and accelerate the development of agrivoltaics, including carbon sequestration and offsets, by eliminating barriers to solar energy production on cattle grazing lands.
2. To develop procedures for measuring and monetizing the ecosystem services of agrivoltaics projects under various land management strategies.*
*Eddy covariance is used to measure carbon, water, and energy flows between land and atmosphere at the field-scale. In a PV system, these data give an indication of the impact of solar arrays and management practices on vegetation growth and water use. This kind of continuous monitoring can underpin commercial and environmental models to support optimized land management strategies.
How We Are Working to Co-Optimize Solar Generation and Cattle Grazing
This project is an example of collaborative science and the challenges it can achieve. To carry the CattleTracker study out, Silicon Ranch has pulled together a cross-sector and cross-industry team of experts from around the world representing industry, academia, government, agriculture, and technology. Members range in expertise from soil science, rangeland ecology, meteorology, natural resource management, atmospheric science, ranching, and animal sciences to engineering and biogeochemical modeling.
Cabriejo Ranch
The Cabriejo Ranch family, led by accredited Savory Holistic Management Professional Rueben Hendricks, implements the Savory Institute’s Ecological Outcome Verification methodology on select projects to track biodiversity, soil, and ecosystem outcomes.
Tall Oaks Farm and Land Management LLC
Trey Lawrence, a Jackson, Tennessee native, heads up Tall Oaks Farm and Land Management LLC. His extensive experience with and love of both animals and farm management led him to Silicon Ranch and Regenerative Energy. Lawrence’s company provides conventional and regenerative land management services at select projects in the West Tennessee region, including holistic planned grazing and other non-electrical operations and maintenance tasks. In his words, this work is “what he feels like he’s supposed to be doing.”
White Oak Pastures
The White Oak Pastures crew, led by Land Steward, Herdsman, and Savory Holistic Management Professional Will Harris, is pushing the innovation envelope at Silicon Ranch’s Georgia solar farms while conducting Ecological Verified Outcome evaluations on the land they manage to track and measure outcomes.
Meet the Team:
Research Group
Nick de Vries
Solar Engineering
Principal Investigator
CTO, Silicon Ranch | Oakland, CA
Dr. Anna Clare Monlezun
Rangeland Ecosystem Science
Agrivoltaics Research Lead
Founder, Graze, LLC | Guffey, CO
Dr. Rebecca Mitchell
EC Flux Science
CEO, Quanterra Systems
Exeter, England
Dr. Mu Hong
Post-Doctoral Fellow
Biochemical Modeling
Colorado State University
Ft. Collins, CO
Dr. Keith Paustian
Distinguished Professor
Dept of Soil & Crop Sciences
Colorado State University |
Ft. Collins, CO
Taylor Bacon
PhD Student
Dept of Soil & Crop Sciences
Colorado State University |
Ft. Collins, CO
Dr. Lily Edwards-Callaway
Assistant Professor
Dept of Animal Welfare Science
Colorado State University |
Ft. Collins, CO
Dr. Robert Clement
EC Flux Science
CTO, Quanterra Systems
Edinburgh, Scotland
Will Harris
Cattle Rancher
Owner, White Oak Pastures |
Bluffton, GA
Advisory Committee
Jordan Macknick
Lead Energy-Water-Land Analyst
NREL/InSPIRE |
Golden, CO
Anat Razón
Head of Department, Solar Independent
Engineering & Technology
DNV Independent Engineers |
Oakland, CA
Dr. Jason Rowntree
Director, Center for Regenerative Agriculture,
Dept of Animal Science
Michigan State University | East Lansing, MI
Dr. Janice Swanson
Director, Animal Behavior and Welfare
Dept of Animal Science
Michigan State University | East Lansing, MI
Russ Conser
CEO, Standard Soil & Blue Nest Beef
Houston, TX
Dr. Tim Coburn
Professor of Systems Engineering
Colorado State University |
Ft. Collins, CO
Ben Norris
SEIA Vice President of Regulatory Affairs
Washington, DC
Expected Project Impacts
1. An expansion of land available to cattle ranchers, land stewards, and solar power plant operators.
2. A decrease in solar project operations and maintenance expenses and the associated lowering of energy costs.
3. An increase in water infiltration, vegetation biomass and biodiversity, vegetation resilience, and carbon sequestration, advancing global sustainability and providing future monetization opportunities.
4. Land revitalization through new solar projects that incorporate regenerative cattle ranching, ultimately creating new pastureland,
Project Timeline
2023
- Create Advisory Committee and onboard research teams, leads, and specialists.
- Conduct comprehensive ecological research combining field methods with EC flux measures at Silicon Ranch’s Bancroft Station.
- Conduct CattleTracker mock-up and animal behavior field research at White Oak Pastures.
- Begin biogeochemical1 model development and review current carbon registries and protocols.
1. Relating to or denoting the cycle in which chemical elements and simple substances are transferred between living systems and the environment. (Oxford Dictionary)
2024
- Repeat field research with EC flux on Bancroft Station.
- Finalize development plans, fabricate, and install CattleTracker PV system in outdoor test lab.
- Parameterize biogeochemical model and develop agrivoltaic carbon protocol framework and methodology.
- Host field workshop to introduce public to CattleTracker system.
2025
- Conduct comprehensive ecological and animal welfare field research on CattleTracker outdoor test lab.
- Finalize biogeochemical model and agrivoltaic carbon protocol methodology and submit to registry.
- Continue stakeholder engagement, commercial discussions, pursue relevant publication avenues, and host second field workshop.
CattleTracker™
Our solution must be good for solar energy generation, good for the land, and good for the animal.
Associated Publications:
2024 Field Workshop Handouts:
