<
https://reneweconomy.com.au/a-multi-billion-dollar-solar-sheep-rental-industry-is-taking-shape-in-australia/>
"Solar grazing isn’t a reality in Australia yet, but farmer-turned vegetation
managers are pricking up their ears at the US-born concept.
But to make it work in Australia will require a few changes to the American
model, which sees flocks rented out to solar farms to keep the grass down.
Sheep rentals to solar farms is now big, big business in the US. One market
analyst suggested it is growing around 10 per cent every year and be worth $9.3
billion in 2031.
In fact, thanks to backing from Wall Street investors for solar vegetation
management companies, solar grazing may be reversing a decades-long decline in
the US sheep industry, according to
Financial Times reporting.
“We definitely would be interested in it, because I assume if you’re renting
out a mob of sheep to the solar farms [you] would be getting paid,” says Dan
Maloney, one half of Fontenoy Project Group, a solar farm vegetation management
company out of the New South Wales (NSW) town Wagga Wagga.
“For us to do [flock rentals],the farms would need constructed differently. You
need to make sure all the wires are secure. There’s different ways the tracker
systems work and sometimes they can be a hazard for stock, and the people
working in there have to be aware of how to act around stock.
“One of the major things would be to make sure you’re not liable, say if a
sheep chews through a wire and causes a heap damage.”
In the US, the industry even has a trade body – the American Solar Grazing
Association – which put the number of rented flocks at 80,000 sheep across 500
solar farms in 27 different states.
Those figures, from April 2024, are likely to be even larger now after the
Texas Sheep Co signed on with Enel North America to send out some 6,000 sheep
to eight Texas solar farms, covering some 10,00 acres.
Vegetation management has been a natural progression for US farmers who start
grazing on solar farms, found a survey by Bock Agricultural Law and Policy
Program at the University of Illinois last year.
The survey found contracts delivered annual revenue of $US300 to $US500 per
acre of solar site for farmers-turned solar grazers, after accounting for the
investment in stock, transport, insurance and labour costs."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
