Highlights
Key takeaways for using this project as a replicable model
- Shows how electric co-ops can integrate solar energy for the mutual benefit of landowners and the community.
- Provides a replicable model for co-locating local food production with clean energy while engaging emerging local farmers.
- Demonstrates the need for (and success of) collaborative approaches to address challenges facing agrivoltaics projects that achieve multiple benefits.
- Provides an example of how to successfully develop and operate a conventionally-designed solar farm incorporating local food production, including setting up the site to support production of marketable crops without materially affecting energy production.
Role of project partners
- US Solar is the developer and manager of the solar garden.
- Big River Farms is a nonprofit organization providing land and training to emerging and immigrant farmers.
- Connexus Energy is an electric co-op with a suburban and rural service territory north of the Minneapolis/Saint Paul metro area.
- The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) is conducting research on the site to document crops compatible with solar.
- The Great Plains Institute is supporting the project with fundraising assistance and the development of best practices to bring to scale in other communities to promote the dual-use solar agrivoltaics concept.
Big Lake project demonstrates the value of agrivoltaics
The Big Lake project shows how agrivoltaics, the co-location of solar and agriculture on the same land, can deliver multiple benefits. Often referred to as “dual-use solar,” agrivoltaics involves agricultural production (crops, livestock production, forage, and fodder) underneath or adjacent to solar panels.
Agrivoltaics is sometimes defined to include ecosystem services that support agriculture, such as pollinator services and water quality improvements. Ecosystem services are increasingly defined under a different dual-use designation, “ecovoltaics.” The Big Lake project includes both agricultural uses and ecovoltaic components in the form of pollinator ground cover where the site is not being used for food production.
The Big Lake agrivoltaics project is a forward-thinking initiative that successfully integrates solar energy production with agricultural practices.
By leveraging the strengths of multiple partners—US Solar, Connexus Energy, and Big River Farms—the project offers a model of how renewable energy projects can support local communities, enhance environmental sustainability, and promote economic resilience. This project not only contributes to Minnesota’s clean energy goals but also sets a precedent for future agrivoltaic endeavors across the country.
New solar business model for electric co-ops
Using local solar energy resources puts downward pressure on rates as the costs of conventional electric energy generation increase. Solar energy is among the least expensive means of generating electricity. Co-ops are also looking for community-friendly ways of complying with Minnesota’s 100 percent clean energy standard.
Agrivoltaics also helps electric co-ops address land use conflicts by turning solar sites into multifunctional spaces for the host community. Connexus Energy experienced the siting dilemmas associated with community hesitancy or opposition in developing its initial solar plus storage facilities. Connexus’s involvement in the Big Lake project reflects a forward-thinking approach to integrating solar energy with community needs and priorities.
Although this site lies outside of Connexus’ service territory, the cooperative’s participation demonstrates a new model for expanding renewable energy while exploring innovative land use practices. Connexus has a related agrivoltaics research site at its headquarters and maintains a strong relationship with Big River Farms, a Connexus member organization.
This model positions co-ops as potential leaders in community-focused renewable energy development, creating benefits for farmers, communities, and energy consumers. Rob Davis, formally at Connexus, stated, “Building more solar farms was an important step for us to learn and document how these practices can benefit more of our members.”
New solar business model for developers
Through the development of the Big Lake project, US Solar set a new standard for how solar projects can engage local communities. One of the primary concerns of communities being asked to host large-scale solar facilities is the impact on agriculture: loss of productive ag land, impacts to prime or significant farming soils, and preservation of agricultural character. By partnering with Big River Farms and The Food Group, US Solar provided immigrant farmers with training and access to land, addressing barriers to entry in agriculture and diversifying agriculture with local, rather than commodity-based, crop production.
This community-focused approach not only fostered goodwill among both farming and solar advocates but also increased community buy-in for the project. The approach demonstrated a model of solar development that was very different from the frequent misperception of solar as an industrial use.
There were significant barriers to this local food concept of agrivoltaics, where multiple small producers would need to be inside the security fence, on-site at a place where electric generation was also occurring, and where the community did not have land use regulations in place to allow agriculture as a dual use.
Concerns of the insurer, the financier, and the community needed to be addressed before the project could move forward. Agricultural land uses could not impact the solar production. Moreover, the solar installation was a conventional design (not elevated for ease of agricultural production), and no accommodation had been made for access to water or storage facilities for supplies or crop harvest.
The success of Big Lake required innovative solutions to address these risks and barriers. As Peter Schmidt of US Solar shared, “Allowing third-party farmers to operate on a solar site posed challenges for safety, insurance, and site management. By involving Big River Farms as a trusted intermediary to train and manage farmers, US Solar mitigated these risks while demonstrating the feasibility of agrivoltaics for other developers.”
Agrivoltaics as a pathway for community-focused agriculture
Big River Farms, operated by The Food Group, played a pivotal role in the project’s success. For the farming, Big River Farms identified willing emerging farmers, provided training on both appropriate crop cultivation and safety considerations for being on an operational solar installation, and provided land access.
Big River Farms also committed to an ongoing initiative to support farmers on the site, including working with the site owner to provide water and storage facilities to sustain the farming operations. As The Food Group shares on its website, this project “has the potential to support both emerging farmers and local food production.”
The farmers at the Big Lake project, many of whom are immigrants or refugees, brought valuable agricultural expertise and cultivated shade-friendly crops suited to the unique conditions of the solar site.
The Food Group shared this perspective from Lillian, a farmer at the Big Lake site:
“I grew up in Kenya, where farming was a way of life for my family. From a young age, I learned the art of farming from my parents, which ignited my passion for growing food. After moving to America, I started gardening in a community garden, and over time, I expanded into larger-scale farming. I now farm in Big Lake at The Food Group’s agrisolar Farm and Lino Lakes, where I grow crops between the solar panels. Today, I grow organic vegetables such as carrots, kale, and collard greens. I take pride in selling my fresh produce directly to my local community. Farming is not only my livelihood but also my passion—it connects me to nature and allows me to give back to the community by providing healthy, organic food.”
For emerging immigrant farmers in Minnesota, accessing land for a sustained period—beyond short-term leases—can be challenging. By securing leases on solar sites, which typically last for 20 years or more, farmers have access to land they can invest in and improve over time.
As The Food Group shared with us, “We work with many emerging farmers in Minnesota, both our Big River Farms land-based education program and the Emerging Farmers Conference. For so many of the farmers we talk to, land access remains one of the biggest barriers to developing sustainable farm businesses. Our agrisolar partnership has so much promise to expand land access for emerging farmers and we remain excited about the possibilities of expanding partnerships like this in the future.”
Equally important for the site owner and operator, US Solar, was the partnership with an established organization to manage the farmers, lower safety and security risks, vet farmers coming to the site, and keep the site in agriculture over time.
NREL researching agrivoltaics at Big Lake site
Big Lake is part of NREL’s Innovative Solar Practices Integrated with Rural Economies and Ecosystems (InSPIRE) project that investigates the environmental compatibility and dual benefits of combining solar energy with agriculture and native landscapes. The InSPIRE project has been at the forefront of agrivoltaics research for over nine years.
NREL is conducting field research across the US and employing modeling and analysis to acquire actionable data on agrivoltaics and ecovoltaics. InSPIRE offers a comprehensive data portal and a map of agrivoltaic installations, peer-reviewed research, and agrivoltaics “101” guidance to provide stakeholders with resources to explore how and where agrivoltaics is being implemented.
The InSPIRE project has a helpful primer on agrivoltaics, where they share site development strategies and basics. For example, they discuss approaches to agricultural crops at solar sites:
“Agricultural crops can thrive underneath the partial shade conditions of solar installations. Crops that are successful in a particular region are likely suitable in a co-location context. Crops can be grown directly underneath panels, in between rows of panels, and outside the perimeter of the solar installation. The partial shade conditions of solar installations can lead to changes in performance and maintenance.”
At the Big Lake project, NREL researchers are evaluating the success of different types of crops and crop placement relative to solar panels on a conventionally-designed solar installation, which impacts the amount of sunlight crops receive. Anecdotally, cilantro was one crop that thrived from the shade of the panels despite a wet start to the season followed by extreme heat and inconsistent rainfall. Some agrivoltaic installations elevate the panels in order to separate solar production from food production. Research is being conducted at both the Big Lake solar project and a smaller associated project at Connexus headquarters. At the Connexus site, shade-tolerant crops like lettuce, spinach, kale, arugula, herbs, and some leafy greens grew bountifully.
Key insights from the Big Lake agrivoltaics project
The knowledge gained from the Big Lake project is valuable as electric co-ops navigate challenges for future solar developments. As Connexus’s Davis commented, “If and when we have projects that need to be on farmland, we have increased operational knowledge on how to enable farming within the array area.” Electric co-ops can integrate solar energy with agriculture in a way that benefits both landowners and the broader community.
Here are key insights from the project:
- The Big Lake project provides a pathway for bringing this model of co-locating local food production with solar energy production to scale across Minnesota and the nation.
- Electric co-ops are making local solar energy investments in community-scale solar installations.
- Community solar projects help the electric co-ops meet Minnesota’s clean energy requirements (co-ops must reach a target of 60 percent carbon-free energy by 2030 and 100 percent by 2040).
- Co-locating local food production and engaging local emerging farmers to create a new generation of farm entrepreneurs creates a win-win-win for the host community as Minnesota moves into the clean energy future.
This project demonstrates that electric co-ops can create a community-focused model for clean energy development that not only minimizes land use conflicts with agriculture but also lays the foundation for the next generation of diversified agricultural production.
Next steps to build on the project’s success and findings
GPI is working with our Big Lake project partners to develop best practices, aiming to scale the Big Lake model for broader dissemination and increased deployment of dual-use solar. By championing innovative approaches like agrivoltaics and ecovoltaics, GPI is helping to shape a future where renewable energy coexists with agriculture, benefiting both ecosystems and local economies across the Midwest and beyond.
As agrivoltaics continues to grow, projects like Big Lake provide a valuable blueprint, merging clean energy, sustainable agriculture, and community-focused development.
Acknowledgments: Thank you to Brian Ross, Dreek Morgan, Monika Vidali, and Jen Christensen for their contributions to this case study.
