About the Episode:

Can solar projects do more than generate clean energy?

How about enhance the health and diversity of local ecosystems?

Sometimes viewed critically for their land use, solar farms can actually offer a unique opportunity to restore habitats and integrate agricultural practices. Lightsource bp, one of the world’s largest utility-scale solar developers, is a pioneer in what they refer to as “responsible solar”; with over 2 GW of projects contracted with farming families, Lightsource is helping to sustain rural livelihoods, revitalize ecosystems, and drive the energy transition through utility-scale solar.

Alyssa Edwards is Senior VP of environmental & External Affairs and Virginia Brown is Director of Ecosystem Services at Lightsource bp. Together, they discuss how Lightsource bp is balancing the scaling of their solar farm operations with the responsibilities of being stewards of vast land areas through their Responsible Solar movement. Nico Johnson and Kerim Baran, of Solar Academy, speak with them to better understand what this holistic view of solar development entails and why Lightsource finds investment in this arena valuable to their development process and goals.

Expect to learn:

• How solar projects can enhance biodiversity and habitat through intentional land management over time.
• How the specific strategies Lightsource is deploying on projects today are both cost saving and good for all stakeholders.
• What is included in Lightsource bp's agrivoltaics approach like integrating sheep grazing, pollinator habitats, and other agricultural practices

Helpful RESOURCES:

Connect with Virginia Brown:

• LinkedIn

Connect with Alyssa Edwards:

• LinkedIn

Check out Lightsource bp:

• Website | LinkedIn | X | YouTube | Instagram

NOTEWORTHY QUOTEs:

“We believe in the energy transition, and we’re a renewable energy company, but the fact that we can add on these additional environmental and social benefits, and look at the land that we’re using because the name of the game is we’re land stewards, and if you have a large portfolio that you develop, own, and operate, you’re really large land stewards.”

— Alyssa Edwards

“We know that when we install solar, it’s going to be there for an extended period of time. It could be decades, easily, or more. That is the timeline where diversity can start increasing, and the environmental timeline is quite a long one. So building up the soil, building up a plant community takes several years to get going, and when we go on a site, we know that we’re going to have perennial grass coverage on that site. We plant an intentional seed mix on that site, and it’s going to be allowed to grow and flourish there for many years.”

— Virginia Brown

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