Why isn’t this more popular im Germany (Solar +sheeps), you have renewable energy, produce high quality meet and local plants and flowers can grow, so insects can profit from that

38 comments

  5. Depends really on the use case.
    Some do keep sheep, but that isn’t something you want for all especially given the low consumption of lamb and even rarer mutton in Germany.

    Some places are kept more “wild” under the panels for biodiversity and others grow crops (e.g. berries) under the panels.
    For both these use cases sheep would be destructive.

  8. It’s somewhat controversial in terms of biodiversity – not good for bird of prey for instance.

    Better to put those solar panels on top of buildings where possible, and just have a few solar farms like this. I also think solar panels above the autobahn would be great.

  9. Actually it is very common. However a patch doesn’t feed a herd of sheep longer than a few days. So farmers have made a business of renting the herds to different solar farmers for a few days or weeks.

  10. CDU (the Christian party) doesn’t want renewable energy and we’re governing 16 years now.

    No solar for Germany. But now in the election they got boned. So maybe soon we can have some renewable energy again.

  11. Good idea minus the meat part. Killing animals unnecessarily is something we should avoid.

    Not to mention sheep produce methane, so theres that.

  18. If I remember correctly there seems to be some issue with receiving EEG-funding for proding energy and(!) GAP-subsidies for producing foods on the same spot of labd. Using land for solar energy turns it ineligible for the latter says § 12 III Nr. 6 DirektZahlDurchfV.

    But there is some progress, special EEG-auctions for Agri-PV are in the making, see § 15 Nr. 2 InnAusV.

  19. Apparently people still dont want solar fields. They also dont want coal, nuclear, wind, water or gas.
    I want energy but please not close to me.

  21. I prefer nuclear + cows. Gives me lots of power, fresh milk, and I can find my way at night illuminated by the gentle green glow of my cows.

    And if someone were to mess with my cows, I can just find some spare plutonium and nuke ’em. What could be better?

  22. Not that many sheep are clever enough to build them. I’ve never herd of an English sheep with such skills.

  25. First of all agricultural land is a *severely* limited ressource in Germany. The food that is produced by having animals graze under PV is a negligible amount. It’s mostly done to keep the grass short in an installation that is very hard to mow by tractor.

    Doing this on traditional grazing land is problematic as this will change the biodiversity of the place severely due to the extreme reduction in radiation. Most “local plants and flowers” actually can’t grow in the shade, leaving you with can-grow-anywhere stuff like *Poa annua* (literally the most common vascular plant in the world).

    Places where you don’t have those adverse effects are rather rare (former mining grounds, the core part of former military bases, etc.).

  27. If there sheep there for a long time there won’t be many plants and flowers left and biodiversity will be very low. They really eat a lot and cut down everything.

  28. FWIW, sheep eat just about anything that shoots up and overall tend to be a bit negative for ‘local flora’. They also have their preferences and prickly tough ‘weeds’ tend to be left alone more often than sweet tender local plants not evolved to defending against voracious sheep. Overgrazing can be a serious issue, leading to degradation of topsoil and reduction/loss of soil fertility and health. You know the Middle East? (Let’s say more specifically the Levant) And how it doesn’t have a whole lot of trees? And the treeless hills and islands of Ireland and Scotland? **SHEEP. I kid you not.** The British Isles were once much more full of trees, but thousands of years of sheep rearing (back in the Bronze age) and combined with timber harvesting reduced it to what you see today. Yes, they are iconic in a way, but you can also view them as degraded landscapes, which in terms of soil health, they are.

    The land solar park sheep is on is often marginal reclaimed land in the first place, but with sheep, one does have to keep in mind a long-term strategy of land management.

    Sheep are also somewhat water intensive, unless they are allowed to grow quite old which balances out their impact, but mutton from aged sheep is rather unpopular in Germany. Sheep cheeses are pretty tasty, on the other hand…

  29. The solarparks need to be set for this with an lower edge of the panels at ~80cm.
    And you cant use goats, since they tend to snack on the wires.

    Next Problem Sheep are picky Eaters, and avoid certain weeds,
    which when grow and produce seeds, so next Season you have more Weeds.

    So you need to utelize a mix between mowing and grazing anyway.

  31. Because they outlawed solar panels on farming land. To prevent energy production using up all the farming land thus causing problems with food production and they nicked that problem very very veeery early in the butt long before the slightest chance of it becoming a problem.

  34. I’m an environmental engineer and it is getting more and more popular. When you build a structure you have to make up for the “lost“ ground by creating valuable spaces like forests, rivers, “knicks“ and so on, or if impossible pay a lot of money, that’s called compensation. By putting grass and sheep beneath the panels, the impairment is not as big as it would be without the sheep and so you have to compensate less

  36. because many (mainly idiots, often even green party voters) say they ruin the view.
    Green energy yay! In front of my house? Nay!

    Germany in a nutshell.

  37. it is super common, it’s a whole business model of keeping solar farms greenery down and basically everyone uses sheep cause they do a damn great job.

Leave a Reply