Just south of the Denver Botanic Gardens at Chatfield, past the actual-farm that includes a Halloween corn maze and a soulful pumpkin patch, there’s a new solar farm taking root.
The high-tech panels on the 1.2-megawatt solar farm, which rotate with the sun or against looming hail, are set a jarring 8 feet in the air.
That’s because the solar farm is itself an actual farm, needing to fit tractors under the panels, with plans to host production of 30,000 pounds of garden vegetables next year in one of Colorado’s biggest experiments in “agrivoltaics.”
Left: Denver Botanic Gardens Chatfield Farm tractors and other equipment are seen through the posts of a new solar farm that will also host more vegetable crops. The panels are built high enough for tractors to work the soil underneath. Right: Gov. Jared Polis and Denver Mayor Mike Johnston tour the new agrivoltaics project at Denver Botanic Gardens Chatfield Farms with Josie Hart, associate director of farm programs. (Michael Booth, The Colorado Sun)
Denver taxpayers spent nearly $4.7 million from the city’s climate change sales tax fund to build the solar farm and the access roads underneath. Electricity generated by the solar panels goes to Xcel Energy, which will credit the monthly bills of about 150 Denver Public Schools families who sign up for income-qualified discounts. The vegetables — from basil to zucchini — will be distributed free at Denver community centers if next year’s growing season is successful.
The solar farm is the 12th such site funded so far by Denver’s climate change sales tax. Other solar farms are serving as parking lot canopies at Denver Public Schools, for example. Denver Botanic Gardens’ push into the burgeoning field of agrivoltaics drew opening-day attention from Gov. Jared Polis and Mayor Mike Johnston, who squinted into late-September sun and applauded the dual projects.
Polis cited “proven technology that can enhance production, enhance soil health, reduce water utilization, and, of course, produce low-cost renewable energy to power our homes. These and many other exciting opportunities really show the power of agrivoltaics to support Colorado communities.”
A small grant from the state Department of Local Affairs helped fund development of the solar and soil farm.
“You chose the perfect site for a solar array. I can’t do this press conference without sunglasses,” Johnston said, looking west from the solar farm, located between Red Rocks and Roxborough State Park. “We see this as a great opportunity to build a greener, more affordable and more sustainable city and state. Obviously, the impact on greening the environment is clear.”
Rotating panels, enhanced by software monitored in partnership with Golden’s National Renewable Energy Lab a few miles north, can move to maximize solar power or create cooler “microclimates” favored by various vegetables. Ahead of the foothills’ notorious hailstorms, the panels can flatten out to prevent a vegetable beat-down.
Solar panel developers across Colorado are promoting the potential of agrivoltaics to diversify local farm economies while softening the pain of surrendering open vistas to large-scale energy operations.
Nonprofit Denver Botanic Gardens already works from its own property and in cooperation with others to grow vegetables for lower-income communities in the metro area, gardens CEO Brian Vogt said at the grand opening.
“We have about 7 acres now of property that we farm,” Vogt said. “Last year, we had 70,000 pounds of produce; by adding this agrivoltaics project, not only have we learned that interrelationship between this type of energy generation and vegetable production, we’re going to add about 30,000 pounds of food in the first year, taking us to a whopping 100,000 pounds of food.”