Solar Shepherd’s Approach to Maintaining Vegetation on Solar Sites

Sheep love grasses. It’s the best thing for them. They are very efficient grazers. They want to eat the vegetation that grows on your sites. Solar Shepherd brings co-agricultural turn-key solutions tailored to the needs of solar firms.

We bring sheep to your arrays. We maintain and care for the sheep. We manage the sheep to ensure even grazing across your site. We ensure the sheep never interfere with power generation or other O&M activity. It’s quite simple and elegant in execution.

We’re agile. We’ll tailor a grazing plan for your specific site. While sheep may not be appropriate for every site, we believe they fit as a solution for most solar arrays. What makes a good site for sheep?

We start by considering the fit for the landowner and the community. We find many landowners prefer sheep because of the peacefulness and tranquility they bring to a site. Many PV arrays are built on land traditionally used for agriculture. Landowners take pride in their stewardship of the land, and we find that continuing agricultural production on the land is important to them. Communities recognize the growing need for green energy solutions and passive solar installations are a great way to meet that need. Maintaining arrays with sheep reduces the opportunity cost by keeping land in agricultural production, while improving the optics for surrounding communities. People like to see the fluffy sheep on green grass, quietly grazing across your site. We also investigate and fully comply with any local ordinances regarding agriculture and livestock.

Once we’ve determined that sheep fit the needs of landowner and community, we evaluate the specific plot for animal health and welfare. We measure the vegetative productiveness of the site so we ensure the nutritional needs of the animals are met and supplement their feed as appropriate. We ensure there are no risks to the animals inherent in the site. We seek out and eliminate any poisonous plants or predator access points that may be present, although these are rarely concerns.

We look at the terrain and develop a site-specific grazing plan that is dynamic and adjustable. We balance the flock to fit existing vegetation, preventing any overgrazing or undergrazing. We seek to maintain vegetation between 2 and 8 inches throughout the grow season and we do this by moving the flock across the site. We may employ rotational grazing methods using temporary fencing that confines sheep to certain areas of the site while other areas regenerate. On some sites, this can be accomplished without temporary fencing, simply by moving water sources.

Contact us and we’ll come to your offices and present our solution to your vegetation management needs, or we’ll meet you to walk a site in person and explain how our green approach may work for your specific array.

Our Office —
Mansfield, MA