Mammoth Solar project doubles land use with local animal, crop production
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The country’s largest solar farm is being built on 13,000 acres in Starke and Pulaski counties in northwest Indiana. It is largely rural farmland with a total combined population of about 35,000. Then, solar panels started popping up.
A new initiative with landowners will make those fields look more like what locals are accustomed to: full of crops and animals.
Doral Renewables, the Pennsylvania-based company behind the Mammoth Solar project, has plans to expand the use of the solar farm to benefit locals and support their environmentally motivated values.
Through the dual-land-use project, the company is partnering with local landowners to tend to livestock and cultivate crops on the same acres as the solar panels. Called agrivoltaics, the company wants to act as innovators in the country’s growing solar market, doubling the use of the land and inviting researchers to study its impact.
“We consider the sun as another harvest, another crop,” said Ed Baptista, director of development of agrivoltaics & green hydrogen for Doral. “When you analyze the economics of what we are getting or the farmers are getting with our solar project, it’s far more of that that they are having right now with a standard crops production.”
Baptista speaks about how the dual-use of farmland benefits those involved and disputes the idea that farmland is being lost.
About Mammoth Solar
As solar energy gains momentum in Indiana and across the country, the $1.5 billion Mammoth Solar project is one of the most ambitious: generating 1.6 gigawatts of power, which is enough to power 275,000 homes.
Mammoth Solar is being completed in three phases broken down into north, south and central plots of land. The second phase kicked off in November 2022.
Throughout the project, about 800 people were hired and about 250 remain operating the panels. About 70% of employment was locally sourced, Cohen said.
The sole concern was whether the solar panels would arrive in time after supply chain delays. However, the company sourced the panels from outside China, which they attributed to the faster delivery.
Working in Indiana and with state partners and politicians has been a great partnership and one with significant support, said Ran Rabi, Doral operations and public relations manager.
Doral Renewables has several projects in the works around the country.
The Mammoth Solar ‘Zoo’
One landowner aims to build his herd to 4,500 sheep in Mammoth North. Another has harvested what they call “solar popcorn” grown on the land’s margins. So far, 750 sheep, eight alpacas, a donkey and a group of dogs are on the property doing their jobs. Leaders call the project their “zoo.”
Baptista said the use of solar panels mixed with other farming gives landowners more means of economic production and better soil. They don’t use herbicides, he said, and the land has other fruitful uses beyond crops that can deplete the soil of nutrients. He rejects the notion solar farms take away prime farmland; rather, they are maximizing its use.
Another benefit, he adds, is that farmland often grows crops not meant for human consumption, such as corn to produce ethanol. Through these types of projects, he said they give an alternative to greenhouse gases and move farmers to produce for local consumption.
“Sometimes I like to think about agrivoltaics as almost like returning farms to the way they used to be,” Cohen said. “Because there was a time when farms grew food, and they had animals. And today, they’re growing non-edible products from the corn and soybeans.”
The company is allowing what they call a “research playground” and will be inviting universities and companies to research their grounds. Purdue University researchers will be studying the south portion in its next phase. They also are working with Ivy Tech Community College to prepare the next generation of farmers with solar panel know-how and techniques.
Doral is evaluating previous and participating in new research to see what plants can grow under panels. Cohen mentioned how potato plants look different when they grow under the panels, but the product ends up being the same.
The local partnerships began to form when the company was looking at alternatives to mowing and a landowner nearby had a large animal grazing operation.
“It’s really important that we’re listening to farmers and working with them for these solutions,” Cohen said. “It can be really successful and good for everybody’s bottom line.”
Cohen said the commitment to launch a dual-use initiative over the solar panel’s footprint is an investment in the community.
The agrivoltaics model stems from its use in Europe, and Baptista said it’s a growing trend in the industry. Doral leaders call the operation a win-win since they have the means for vegetation management and farmers have extra income to rely on. Cohen said it’s another initiative that connects them to the local community, but it takes an investment of time and money to get it going.
It takes a lot of upfront effort and money to rely on animals to do a job, Cohen said. However, he said it’s already proven to be worth it.
“It’s as much of an art as it is a science,” he said. “Developers have to be committed to it and willing to take some risks and upfront investments in order to see it through to prove how it works. And for us, it’s working very well.”