Solar farms are booming in the US and putting thousands of hungry sheep to work

AP ^ | Jan 19, 2025 | NADIA LATHAN

[where's_the_Outrage?]

BUCKHOLTS, Texas (AP) — On rural Texas farmland, beneath hundreds of rows of solar panels, a troop of stocky sheep rummage through pasture, casually bumping into one another as they remain committed to a single task: chewing grass.

The booming solar industry has found an unlikely mascot in sheep as large-scale solar farms crop up across the U.S. and in the plain fields of Texas. In Milam County, outside Austin, SB Energy operates the fifth-largest solar project in the country, capable of generating 900 megawatts of power across 4,000 acres (1,618 hectares).

How do they manage all that grass? With the help of about 3,000 sheep, which are better suited than lawnmowers to fit between small crevices and chew away rain or shine.

The proliferation of sheep on solar farms is part of a broader trend — solar grazing — that has exploded alongside the solar industry......

“Solar grazing is probably the biggest opportunity that the sheep industry had in the United States in several generations,” Redden said.

The response to solar grazing has been overwhelmingly positive in rural communities near South Texas solar farms where Redden raises sheep for sites to use, he said.

“I think it softens the blow of the big shock and awe of a big solar farm coming in,” Redden said.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

"Takes up a little more space than a coal fired, or natural gas, or nuclear plant."

Yet, you will STILL need that conventional plant to keep the lights on at night and the factories running at night. So the 4,000 acres becomes 8,000 acres AND you have DOUBLE the capital investment -- the solar plant plus the conventional plant.

Nobody has ever cracked the nut of having to overbuild by 2X.

Of course, you could always build a battery plant to store the power generated during the day. But then your solar plant will have to be twice as large so you can use X power during the day and send X power to the batteries for use that night.

On the plus side, lithium battery plants can provide LOTS of extra heat. Look at all the excitement generated in 2024 alone. The Climate and Environment Gods must real pleased...

Moss Landing, CA.

Otay Mesa, CA.

Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province, South Korea.

Panamanian-registered car carrier ship "Fremantle Highway" near the Dutch island of Ameland.

[BobL]

Good question.

Here’s the link by the way. Absolutely CLASSIC!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLhm5CyJ6JM

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Yeah, offshore wind is the ticket! Just ask all those Massachusetts people about their thoughts on glass shards washing up on their beaches from just ONE broken windmill blade.

Those wind machines have a 25 year life span. What will become of all that junk at 25 years? Millions of blades to dispose of and no technique other than bury them in a landfill. Then the towers will remain, rusting away, with millions of tons of concrete in the ground and under the sea. Think of all the poor whales banging their heads on those undersea structures.

In my entire lifetime (73 years), nothing comes close to “green” energy for sheer stupidity and ignorance of basic engineering and economic laws.

[butlerweave]

Until a hailstorm hits then the ground will be Poison

[rey]

Funny how those ruminants are not a source of methane and climate change gases but cattle are.

[Sacajaweau]

Turning Farmland into a wasteland....

[Zuriel]

There are still some AO Smith Harvestore silos around. Henry County IL used to have a LOT of them. 25 years ago we made a swimming pool with a ring of Harevestore panels. We had a concrete silage silo for our cattle feedlot.

Concentrated feedlots like in the Texas panhandle are not necessarily a good thing.

[logi_cal869]

LOL. That was the exact episode I watched before posting (it’s only been >4-5 decades).

[Wuli]

China is doing a giant booming busy in Biden’s “renewables” expenditures and subsdidies, while it increases its coal fired power plants.

[Honorary Serb]

Can we eat more lamb and mutton? Can we have cheap wool coats and sweaters?

Really?

[gloryblaze]

We called the Harvestores “blue tombstones” because they were so wildly expensive we figured they put the final nail in the highly leveraged farms. Pretty soon, people figured out cheaper ways to do the job and that was that. Many are still in use, though.

In any case, they were not a government boondoggle, so no skin off our collective back.

[foundedonpurpose]

And the coal and nuclear plants last more than 20 years. Let’s include that into energy cost projections. Oh wait, the leftists hate basic math.

[sausageseller]

Should release some goats on them.
They will eat the plastic Off the wires.

[NorthMountain]

capable of generating 900 megawatts of power

At what capacity factor? How does that capacity factor compare to coal, oil, natural gas, nuclear, and wind?

[gloryblaze]

There is an outgoing controversy among environmentalists! The real one (minority) are concerning about nature, the other just about global warming. All “green” energy project are very detrimental to the nature!

So this article seems to try to show that “green” energy project are not total loss, that they can put the land to some use.

If this is the best use of land destroyed by solar projects, it just show how bad these projects really are!

Spot on! We have three properties that the solar industry "location finder" companies are courting. The breadth of their talking points in praise of solar is amazing. BS in art form.

[GenXPolymath]

Solar and wind are 45% percent of the total grid right now this second for Texas ERCOT.

Here is the free version of what power professionals see in real time.

https://www.ercot.com/gridmktinfo/dashboards

Wind peaked at 2045 yesterday and was 51% of the total grid load at time. Solar peaked at 0900 yesterday and was 26 percent of the grid while at the same time wind was at 30% for a total of 59%.

Flat out your prior opinion based in zero data is wrong and the numbers conclusively show it. In the last week since we have had two frontal systems come through wind has been as high as 65% of the total grid load and has been above 40% total load for 24 hour blocks at a time. Go look at the real data directly from the entity that
Supplies all the power to Texas.

[TexasGator]

“(one secret - the solar cells are very hard to shut down)”

---

Solar farm curtailment is a process where a solar farm intentionally reduces its electricity production, essentially “turning down” its output, to maintain grid stability by managing situations where too much solar power is being generated compared to what the grid can handle, typically during periods of high solar generation and low demand; this is done by sending signals to the solar inverters to decrease power output, effectively “wasting” some potential electricity generation to avoid overloading the grid.

https://www.google.com/search?q=How+does+solar+farm+curtailment+work&client=tablet-android-samsung-rvo1&sca_esv=4045e92abb6159d4&biw=1205&bih=541&ei=Y1SNZ5OmE_PawbkPz7aR6Q0&ved=0ahUKEwjT46GnxIKLAxVzbTABHU9bJN0Q4dUDCBA&uact=5&oq=How+does+solar+farm+curtailment+work&gs_lp=Egxnd3Mtd2l6LXNlcnAiJEhvdyBkb2VzIHNvbGFyIGZhcm0gY3VydGFpbG1lbnQgd29yazIIEAAYgAQYogQyCBAAGKIEGIkFMggQABiABBiiBEjFL1CBC1jJG3ABeACQAQCYAXigAcwEqgEDMy4zuAEDyAEA-AEBmAIGoAKrBMICChAAGLADGNYEGEfCAgcQABiABBgNwgILEAAYgAQYhgMYigXCAggQIRigARjDBJgDAIgGAZAGCJIHAzMuM6AH3xg&sclient=gws-wiz-serp

[Hot Tabasco]

Here's what a 4,000 acre solar panel farm in Texas looks like after a Mar., 2004 hail storm.......

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdjrgcp_7JQ

[Vaduz]

Beneath hundreds of rows of solar panels, a troop of stocky sheep rummage through pasture.

After the hail storms that Texas is noted for wonder what the mercury count is around them from the panels.

Don’t drink the water.

[dangus]

And yet 900 megawatts from 6 square miles is pretty awesome, considering the US has 3 million square miles of land and 800 million acres of grazing land.