The Ultra-Efficient Farm of the Future Is in the Sky

Five stories up at Colorado State University, a highly improbable garden grows beneath a long row of rooftop solar panels. It’s late October at 9 a.m., when the temperature hits 30 degrees Fahrenheit and the wind is blowing. Shortly before my arrival, researchers had removed the last of the frost-intolerant crops from the substrate beneath the panels, a total of 600 pounds for the season. In their place, cool-season foods like leafy greens – arugula, lettuce, kale, Swiss chard – still grow, sheltered from the intense sun here.

This is no ordinary green roof, but a vast outdoor laboratory full of sensors, supervised by horticulturist Jennifer Bousselot. The idea behind agrivoltaics on roofs is to imitate a forest on top of a building. Just as the shade of towering trees protects undergrowth from solar stress, solar panels can also encourage plant growth – the overall goal being to produce more food for growing urban populations, while saving land. water, by generating clean energy, And make buildings more energy efficient.

Photography: Matt Simon

“When you think about what we will need as a society – our building blocks – it will be food, energy and water, as has always been the case,” says Bousselot. With rooftop agrivoltaics, “you can produce, especially in a mostly unused space, two of these things and keep the third.”