About a month ago I had started the work to get solar panels set up at my house. They came by today to do the site survey and I am just happy to know that progress is being made slowly! They won't be able to do roof units, primarily due to what my house is, but there is space for ground units, and I am curious to hear what they suggest they do for it.
Keep in mind that plants will still grow just fine underneath the pannels, so don't let the put them so close to the ground that it becomes unaccessible beneath.
Indeed, but even just having a bunch of dried up scrubs under your solar panels that you can't easily remove is quite a hassle and potential fire-hazard.
But I agree, why waste the space below when you could for example put some really nice raised beds with shadow preferring plants below?
This also helps keeping the temperature lower, which slightly raises the efficiency of the panels and probably elongates their overall life-time.
Keep in mind that plants will still grow just fine underneath the pannels, so don't let the put them so close to the ground that it becomes unaccessible beneath.
Here's an article discussing research into that from the university I work at: https://www.ualberta.ca/folio/2023/05/could-growing-crops-under-solar-panels-provide-food-and-energy-at-the-same-time.html
Indeed, but even just having a bunch of dried up scrubs under your solar panels that you can't easily remove is quite a hassle and potential fire-hazard.
But I agree, why waste the space below when you could for example put some really nice raised beds with shadow preferring plants below?
This also helps keeping the temperature lower, which slightly raises the efficiency of the panels and probably elongates their overall life-time.
Thank you for suggesting this I hadn't even thought about it!
This isn't something I would've thought about. Not OP, I just appreciate the heads up!