Texas farmers embrace renewable energy boom

Texas is one of the agricultural powerhouses in the United States, producing tens of billions of dollars worth of crops and cattle. It is the country's largest renewable energy producer. The energy transition is moving fast and the two sectors are becoming increasingly intertwined.

Farmers and ranchers have embraced a renewable energy boom that has swept through the state. Wind and solar power promise to make agricultural operations more sustainable and provide steady income in an industry in which economic fortunes swing from season to season.

As is usually the case in farming, there are a number of reasons for adopting renewable energy, and people usually have a few on a given farm, said Cathy Day, climate policy co-ordinator at the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, an advocacy group.

They are using solar as either a way to reduce their costs or make some money back from the same land. Some people, especially a lot of the more conservation-oriented farmers, are interested in just being part of a climate solution. The promise of improved resilience, as severe weather driven by climate change poses an ever greater threat, is also adding to the appeal of on-farm renewable power in Texas.

Solar executives and analysts say interest in small-scale systems that can power operations locally soared after February s brutal winter storm crippled Texas's electricity grid.

At the time, the state agriculture commissioner Sid Miller said that the near week-long power outage had a significant impact on shutting down farms and food-processing facilities across the state, causing billions of dollars of damage to the sector.

Renewable energy is now part of a larger effort to bring the state's agricultural sector into the low-carbon economy, though these are often driven by economic rather than climate concerns.

Texas farmers produce more than 5 m barrels of biofuel a year, second in the US to Iowa, where most of the country's corn ethanol is produced. Some are stepping into new carbon markets in which schemes that increase biodiversity or restore grasslands with a greater ability to absorb carbon dioxide onto the soil can be marketed as an offset to the big greenhouse gas polluters.

Renewable energy on Texas agricultural land began to take off more than a decade ago when big ranches embraced a wind energy boom that would make the state, if it were a country, the world's fifth-largest wind power producer.

It was an economic lifeline for many ranchers who sold access to their land to wind project developers who wanted to put up turbines. Some objected to the disruption to the landscape as scores of towering turbines were erected, but the financial benefits kept the projects flowing.

They typically feed power to the grid rather than to farms and ranches, but they have cleaned up the broader grid that powers the agricultural sector.

Wind generation, which is largely hosted on ranch and farm land, recently surpassed coal in the power mix of the state. More than 20 per cent of the electricity generated in Texas typically comes from wind power.

A spokesman for the Texas Farm Bureau, Gary Joiner, said large solar projects have started to proliferate across Texan farms and ranches, although these have attracted a bigger backlash than the turbine boom a decade ago.

Some farmers are using small-scale, on-farm solar installations to generate their own electricity. The solar projects that are most traction and attention are primarily fed into the grid. These can create substantial income for landowners but are more difficult than wind projects to integrate into existing operations and often displace land that was previously used for agriculture.

Solar developers will provide between $450 and $1,200 an acre per year to lease land for new projects based on solar-generation potential and proximity to power markets, according to Joiner.

He says that is an income that traditional agriculture doesn't provide in a given year. The landowner is incentivized to look at that because of the value of what the lease represents. The Texas Farm Bureau has long been a firm believer in supporting farm-based renewable energy, such as solar wind and biogas projects, but that support is the subject of debate over whether renewables projects are eating into Texas's most productive agricultural lands.

In many cases, it is productive farmland that is converted to solar property, says Joiner. Agriculture is lost to those who are working the land. We hear those comments and sentiments. Day, from the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, says that there is an increasing focus on integrating solar projects into farming operations to avoid having to set aside land for solar panels.

Agrisolar is a practice that involves planting crops that do well in the shade, such as lettuce or tomatoes, around the panels, or using the same land for animal grazing. Day says that it's turning out to have some substantial advantages for both the crop and the solar system.

It is a diversification of income. Putting your energy with your crops instead of just diversifying your crops, now you are diversifying into something even more different. With climate becoming a concern, I think you will see a push in this direction.