PVMI Q&A: Nick de Vries, Silicon Ranch
NICK DE VRIES, SILICON RANCH
Nick de Vries is the chief technology officer for Silicon Ranch, a full-service solar and carbon solutions company based in Nashville, Tennessee, that is pioneering large-scale agrivoltaics. As part of our research for the 2023 PV Module Index Report (PVMI), RETC conducted a subject matter expert interview with de Vries to explore sustainable solar development success stories. Here, we share highlights from this behind-the-scenes PVMI interview, exploring the nexus between renewable energy and regenerative land management.
RETC: How does Silicon Ranch’s business model inform its project development decisions?
NdV: Silicon Ranch owns and operates every solar project we build. We own the land; we own the equipment; we pay county taxes. And we do so for the life of the system. That long-term ownership perspective informs the way we deploy and maintain our systems. For example, we might decide to pay more for something during procurement or construction because it improves long-term reliability or lowers operating costs over time. Many of our peers are familiar with this way of thinking because it’s how we run our households. Maybe you shop at a farmers’ market rather than at a big box store because it allows you to support your neighbors while reducing your carbon footprint. At Silicon Ranch, our business model allows us to apply this holistic way of thinking to solar project development. That business model means we can evaluate embodied energy as part of our purchasing decisions or source components locally to support economic development in our communities.
RETC: What is ‘regenerative energy’ and how does this relate to your business goals?
NdV: If you look at Silicon Ranch’s mission statement, you’ll notice that we are not simply in the business of generating low-cost renewable energy. Our mission includes bringing economic development, jobs, partnerships, and carbon solutions to the communities where we operate. With that in mind, regenerative energy is the process of developing and operating renewable energy assets in accordance with land management practices that seek to improve soil health, biodiversity, water quality, and habitat over time. By combining renewable power generation with regenerative land management practices, we can create economic benefits—such as agricultural production—that go beyond what a solar power plant alone can deliver. We employ or partner with farmers, ranchers, or land managers at many of our projects to manage livestock. By keeping the land in agricultural production, we are effectively harvesting two products: solar-generated energy and pasture-raised lamb. These agrivoltaic practices not only strengthen rural communities but also revitalize grassland ecosystems, reducing stormwater runoff and improving the land’s ability to capture and store carbon.
Company-owned sheep grazing at the Snipesville Solar Farm. [Credit: Silicon Ranch]
RETC: When did Silicon Ranch start developing solar projects with grassland restoration in mind?
NdV: We made this switch about five years ago. In 2018, our fleet capacity was roughly 500 MW—significantly smaller than the GW-scale fleet we operate today. Before Silicon Ranch adopted regenerative land management practices, we had recurring issues with erosion and vegetation. As a result, we were spending a lot of money on civil repairs and vegetation management. We sometimes spent money twice to repair damages resulting from mowers or herbicide overspray. Serendipitously, we started development on a project in Georgia and discovered that one of our neighbors was a world-renowned regenerative rancher, Will Harris of White Oak Pastures. Here was this guy farming huge swaths of land purposefully, leveraging operational excellence to maximize profitability. This was a sustainable business based on sound economics. After meeting Will and learning more about his approach to land management and soil health, we began to look at the land under our panels as a biological asset rather than as an operational liability. We realized we could integrate regenerative land management practices with solar power production and ultimately deliver better power plants. It was not only technically feasible but also made long-term economic sense when compared to conventional practices.
RETC: What does this look like operationally? Are you rotating flocks of sheep across multiple assets?
NdV: It depends on project capacity, land area, and quantity of sheep in a flock. Our smaller projects—on the order of 20 MW or 100 acres—might not be large enough to support a full flock of sheep. So, we might divvy up a flock and rotate those sheep across multiple sites. But we also have an enormous 2,000-acre site where a resident ranch manager maintains a permanent flock of more than 2,000 sheep. My employees at this site just tagged, spayed, vaccinated, and castrated 800 lambs. These are not temporary employees. We are hiring FFA [Future Farmers of America] members right out of the agricultural college for our in-house land management and shepherd teams.
Silicon Ranch’s first agrivoltaic technician, Lemuel Miller, oversees a company-owned flock of sheep at the Snipesville Solar Farm. [Credit: Silicon Ranch]
RETC: Do the sheep take care of all your vegetation management needs?
NdV: No, the sheep don’t take care of everything. Some plants are not palatable to sheep. Other species are palatable to sheep early in the season but not after the plant has lignified and gone to seed. So, we own sheep, and we own mowers—but we mow less frequently. At some sites, we used to mow five times per year. Now that we own sheep, we mow twice a year. Our goal is to mow once for volume and once selectively. So, maybe we only run the mower down the middle of the tracker rows, and let the sheep manage everything in the shade of the panels. In the summer, there is simply too much volume for the sheep to maintain all the grass and vegetation. If you stock sheep based on your summer forage levels, you’ll have too many sheep and not enough food in the winter. So, you balance the size of your flock and perform supplemental mowing.
RETC: Did you have to adapt your product procurement after shifting to agrivoltaics?
NdV: There’s a lot of discussion about the benefits of a taller mounting structure or a different tracker geometry. That’s all well and good. But you can’t focus on dual-use applications if you’re worried about your modules—or if you’re actively having to change out your modules. Agrivoltaics starts with quality solar module construction. This is why module testing data is so important to Silicon Ranch: You must have a quality build to do agrivoltaics.
Excerpts from this interview with Nick de Vries originally appeared in the article “Responsibly Scaling Solar Development,” an industry trends article featured in the 2023 PV Module Index Report.
