An American research group has held a pilot workshop for stakeholders of Agrivoltaïss in Arizona, including farmers, developers, government officials and indigenous leaders. A reflection paper offers some important collection restaurants for future public participation.
The Semi-Arid Lab for research team of Scalable Agrivoltaics (Salsa) from the University of Arizona has held a pilot workshop on community involvement at Agrivoltaics. The team wrote a perspective paper about the Arizona-specific workshop and has described its organizational structure, shared some insights and mentioned important collection restaurants.
“Due to the wide range of project scales, ownership structures, production output and benefits that can include Agrivoltaic projects, a distinction is difficult to contribute to local support and opposition,” explained the group.
“To this end, this perspective presents a pilot workshop on community involvement in Agrivoltaïschen organized by the authors as a way for improving consciousness and understanding the local expectations of Agrivoltaic systems.”
The participation of draining at 55 and fourteen local farmers attended online, together with fourteen local food proponents, twelve leaders from indigenous tribal communities, six researchers who study agricultural and energy subjects, five regional and national government officials and four solar developers who are active in Arizona. The workshop consisted of different components: a pre-survey, an educational component, group work, a tour of an experimental agrivoltaic array and a dinner from farmer to board.
The workshop
The survey included 21 Agreement-Disagree statements, with a five-point scale, with regard to agriculture, solar energy and agrivoltaisies. The educational component included a presentation focused on technical and agronomical aspects of Agrivoltaics. Later the participants were sorted in groups of 7-8 participants, with representation in different groups of stakeholders. They were asked to discuss ownership and benefit structure, technical design, project scale/size and agricultural products. Finally, the tour and dinner took place and researchers were available to answer questions.
According to the research results, 74% of the participants agreed that large-scale solar development is essential for tackling climate change, although only 33% has agreed strongly. Only 54% of the participants agreed that they would be willing to live near a solar array, and 87% agreed that crops, plantations and grazing cattle improved the aesthetics of a solar channel. While four of the eight groups were the wish that Agrivoltaics was ‘small’, the survey and the group work found a disagreement about what that is. For example, one group declared two to five hectares so small, while the other classified slightly less than 150 hectares.
Questions about Agrivoltaic property have resulted in mixed results, both in the survey and in group work. “Four of the eight groups described an ‘optimal’ Agrivoltaics project as one with ownership shared between a combination of the farmer, energy company and community,” said the academics. “Three groups described projects that were exclusively owned by the farmer. In particular, one group consisted mainly of members of tribal communities, presented an alternative structure:” Stewardship, no ownership. Use a cooperative model initiated by the community. “
Insight
The team discovered that 76% of the participants agreed with the statement: “Agrivoltaic systems are favorable for local communities”, while six groups explicitly stated that an optimal Agrivoltaic system would produce food crops. Three groups also mentioned water savings as an expected advantage of Agrivoltaic systems, while two groups of education mentioned as an advantage of such systems.
“Workshops from the Community Engagement such as this can help clarify public expectations on the size, property and benefits of Agrivoltaic systems,” said the Salsa team. “As the acceptance of Agrivoltaics all over the world continues, community involvement will play an integral role in guaranteeing adoption in a socially sustainable way.”
The study appears in “Cultivation of involvement: public participation in the planning and design of Agrivoltaic“Published in Energy research and social sciences. Researchers from the University of Arizona, the University of Maryland, Stanford University and the University of Minnesota Duluth has contributed to the newspaper.
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