Location: Cotton Ginning Research
2025 Annual Report
Objectives
Objective 1: Design and develop optimized agrivoltaic installations and best management practices for multi-functional cropping and rangeland production and agricultural processing systems.
Objective 2: Develop and deploy decision support tools for agrivoltaics in specific agricultural systems, including economic and life cycle assessment.
Approach
The Range Management Unit and Cotton Ginning Research Unit will collaborate to develop systems-level concepts and tools to guide agrivoltaics efforts in croplands, rangelands, and agricultural processing systems of the Southwest. The units will integrate research datasets and analyze and report agrivoltaic costs and benefits using standardized indicator frameworks and econometric analysis. The units will conduct research on optimal siting and design of photovoltaic installations to maximize agroecological co-benefits. The units will develop tools and best management practices for agrivoltaic system integration, maintenance, energy utilization, and return on investment. The units will create agreements with University partners to support experiments in photovoltaic installations with key crop and soil types common to Southwestern ecosystems at agricultural research centers and postharvest processors. The units will collaborate with government agencies and agricultural stakeholders controlling land on which renewable energy development projects are planned. Initial project phase will define knowledge gaps about likely co-benefits and challenges and determine priorities for next phases of research in the Southwest.
Progress Report
This project is collaborative across the two research units in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Recruitment for two scientists (Research Economist & Research Engineer) has been paused. The Range Management Research Unit (RMRU) also lost a Range Science Technician working on the project to the deferred resignation program.
The primary accomplishments were a combined effort during the second year of this project to address both project objectives: Objective 1: Design and develop optimized agrivoltaic installations and best management practices for multi-functional cropping and rangeland production and agricultural processing systems & Objective 2: Develop and deploy decision support tools for agrivoltaics in specific agricultural systems, including economic and life cycle assessment.
Significant progress was made under a collaboration and formal cooperative agreement with New Mexico State University (NMSU). Designs for two agrivoltaics systems to be built on NMSU land were completed, shepherded through approvals, and near the construction phase. One array will be on cropland and used to investigate performance of Western crops under various levels of shading, impact on land and water use efficiency, and energy production. The second array was designed for arid rangeland to study the impact of shading on forage production, soil health, cattle and wildlife interactions, and energy production. Sensor packages were selected and an innovative “data gate” was designed for mounting sensors at design locations while allowing them to be easily moved for field operations and returned. On the rangeland site, preinstallation ecological data collection with a focus on restorivoltaics (restoration of rangeland productivity alongside solar development) was initiated with current flora and fauna documentation and soil health measurements.
Work was continued on a second collaborative effort with the cotton industry and Texas A&M University (TAMU) to investigate feasibility and potential of agrivoltaics systems at agricultural post-harvest processing facilities, like cotton gins, to offset energy costs. A formal cooperative agreement was initiated, and a graduate student researcher was hired by TAMU to investigate energy usage and utilization at cotton gins, to identify the variables that impact adoption of agrivoltaics systems, and to develop decision tools for evaluating sites for future agrivoltaics systems. A review of literature about solar energy production in and alongside agriculture and a survey of attitudes towards solar energy and deployment with agriculture and at cotton gins were conducted by TAMU. Interviews with cotton gin facilities that currently have solar arrays were conducted to understand the technical, financial, legal, and social challenges and opportunities.
Through a cooperative agreement with the Asombro Institute for Science Education, a three-lesson module to introduce students (grades 6-8) to agrivoltaics was developed. In these lessons, students will apply science and engineering practices and crosscutting concepts through an agricultural lens and consider the pros and cons of implementing agivoltaics as a solution to extreme heat and drought. Asombro pilot tested the lessons with students and conducted a teacher workshop to introduce and preview the curriculum with lesson materials available to them for use in their classrooms. Future teacher workshops were planned.
To address Objective 2, an NMSU-supported postdoc compiled data to test hypotheses regarding the environments and economic settings that were most likely to be converted to renewable energy development across the Southwest. This information will be used to understand the agricultural contexts within which agrivoltaics may be most appropriate.
Accomplishments