Independent power producer Soltage announced the close of a 28 MW solar project that has started construction in Ohio on land owned by the Cincinnati Zoo. Soltage acquired the project from Melink Solar Development, a leader in pre-construction development services for large-scale solar PV projects. The Cincinnati Zoo entered into two Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) with Calpine Energy Solutions for all of the electricity generated from both phases of the project, which will be utilized to serve their customer’s electricity requirements.

This is Soltage’s first project to utilize sheep grazing for vegetation management. Sheep grazing is mutually beneficial for the project, and local communities, as it maintains vegetation below the solar projects while helping restore soil carbon and overall soil health. Soltage is partnering with Ohio Solar Grazing, a local sheep farmer that manages a pasture-based livestock operation, to maintain the land located about 20 miles outside Cincinnati.

“This unique agrivoltaic project, built against the backdrop of the historic Cincinnati Zoo, marks the first site in our portfolio to implement sheep grazing to maintain the land, giving us a chance to partner with the local community in new ways,” said Jesse Grossman, CEO of Soltage. “We’re proud to expand clean energy in Ohio and support American businesses in their transition to decarbonize operations.”

Kelsey is managing editor of Solar Power World and host of the Contractor's Corner podcast.

Melinks has already been involved and installed covered parking at the zoo for a 1.56MWp solar PV system. Now, it’s developing an AgriVoltaic project of 28MW, is that peak or “per day”?

It would be interesting to see how much solar PV generation per acre of land this new project generates. Lately, new solar PV panel designs like TopCon panels are in the 24% efficiency range of photon harvest. Shrinking acreage and gaining generation capacity is always a goal. For solar PV farms now it seems a 1.5 to 1 D.C. buss to A.C. inverter output using bifacial solar PV panels and a solar PV string mounted on single axis trackers rotating from East to West are becoming the norm. With large scale on site ESS, one can shift the energy to night time and also use the energy storage for grid services garnering more revenue capture from installed assets.

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