This story was reported and written by VPM News.
Black Bear Solar is on the smaller side of Dominion Energy’s solar fleet; at a peak capacity of 1.6 megawatts, it can power about 400 homes when the sun’s shining its brightest.
But it still takes up about 13 acres in rural Dillwyn, Virginia — which Dominion Energy’s Adam Fillius told VPM News could otherwise be farmland. That’s typical of solar farms, which are vying for sunlight and flat land, often in competition with agriculture.
“We’re trying to bring that back into the site and have a dual use,” Fillius said.
He’s describing agrivoltaics, a multiuse approach that involves pairing solar installations with agricultural uses. It’s a buzzy topic in renewable energy circles; the U.S. Department of Energy advocates the strategy, and research shows mutual economic and environmental benefits.
Dominion has been exploring agrivoltaics at Black Bear Solar. Chuck Burden of Mountain House Apiaries installed and monitors four honeybee hives at the solar farm — which house about 180,000 bees that pollinate wildflowers and crops in a 5-mile radius.
“A solar farm is an oasis, it’s kind of like a safe place for honeybees,” Burden said.
Burden said Dominion’s solar farms have all a bee could need. They’re stocked with native wildflowers, they generally have water retention ponds, and they’re physically protected by fences — keeping protein hungry critters like bears and raccoons away. They also don’t use pesticides on the property.
But he still does extensive work surveying the surrounding areas.
“One of the things we don’t want to do when we’re putting in a new apiary is overpopulate an area,” Burden said. “If there’s several beekeepers in the area and a lot of feral pollinators, I tend to shy away from adding any more bees.”
Burden also evaluates chemical use on nearby farms. Farmers often use a mixture of herbicides and pesticides, which can kill bees, to increase their yields.
“The honeybees have a lot of things going against them,” Burden said.
Fortunately for the bees, Black Bear Solar fits the bill — and is stocked with native wildflowers like little bluestem, white clover and black-eyed Susans that keep the bees and local pollinators happy. On a tour of the farm in October, sulphur and fritillary butterflies were abundant.
Burden determined the site could accommodate up to 24 beehives. He started small, with just four hives — but plans to double that next year if the bees do well. The hives are monitored with an array of sensors tracking weight, temperature, noise levels and more.
Dominion spokesperson Tim Eberly said the company is rapidly expanding its solar footprint in Virginia. It has enough solar capacity today to power 500,000 homes at peak output, and plans to build enough to support 2.5 million over the next 10-15 years.
Fillius said he hopes agrivoltaics will catch on in the United States. They’re already popular in other countries, such as Germany, where a survey this year found that nearly three-quarters of responding farmers were open to adopting solar. Dominion is pursuing agrivoltaics on larger farms with sheep grazing, and is looking into planting crops between rows of solar panels in the future.
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