In 2016, a North Carolina solar company began using 80 sheep alongside mechanical and chemical methods; the operation later grew to 590 sheep across 300 acres

In North Carolina, there is a solar farm that is being maintained by hundreds of sheep. While it looks like a cottagecore heaven, fences, trailers, and spreadsheets are involved. According to Cornell Small Farms, the tale of this solar farm started back in 2016 with Carolina Solar Services, which provides electrical and vegetation maintenance. They added 80 sheep to their workforce in order to create a more natural balance to their mechanical and chemical methods. They now have 590 sheep maintaining 300 acres of solar farms. This started as a side experiment but has become a proper strategy. So is it really better to use animals instead of lawn equipment?

How do the sheep maintain the farm?

There are strict timelines for the maintenance window. The ewes need to be on site by early May and can stay until November. They create paddocks, each 3-5 acres in size. Each paddock runs for 4-7 days with 200-300 ewes. Sheep do have limitations, though. The company still employs workers to maintain the areas of heavy vegetation and broom sedge. This will be balanced with other methods depending on the area.

North Carolina isn’t the only location using sheep. A 2025 study titled “Sheep grazing as sustainable vegetation management for solar energy production in the northeastern USA,” published in Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems, and the national census done by the American Solar Grazing Association found that approximately 113,050 sheep were grazing 129,000 acres across over 500 solar sites throughout the USA. This is an estimated 77-11% of total solar capacity. However, this was the first broadly organized national effort to measure solar grazing, so there’s no earlier census to compare it against, meaning it’s currently hard to say how fast the practice is actually growing, even though this single snapshot is large.

What the soil data says, and what it doesn’t

The Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems study looked at 28 sites with grazing sheep and 3 sites without. Between 2022 and 2024, the sheep grazing sites showed significantly higher levels of organic matter, predicted soil protein, and active carbon. However, the authors note that this wasn’t a long-term study, and many differences could be due to fluctuating weather. The total soil health score wasn’t statistically significant between the two groups. The study was done with the help of staff from the American Solar Grazing Association and was also funded by New York’s state energy research agency.

The money question

When grazing costs were analysed over 5 years, the average costs were approximately $508 per acre per year. At two mowing sites in the study, mowing cost about $338 per acre (precisely $337.50). When these costs were spread over 15 years, the average dropped to around $386. The authors concluded that long-term contracts make grazing costs competitive. However, there were some limitations. Only 9 grazing companies completed the cost survey, and the solar company survey wasn’t completed due to low response (just 2 of 14 solar companies/asset managers responded, covering only 3 of 31 sites). Sites that required grazing companies to transport water cost an extra $238.56 per acre.

According to PV Magazine USA’s summary of a University of Illinois survey, the average grazer manages around 55 acres and 125 sheep per season. 75% of graziers who had contracts with solar companies would agree to manage the vegetation, meaning they had to purchase mowers and edgers. The Frontiers study notes that the same survey’s weekly averages were 14.75 hours on-site, 8.17 hours traveling, and 5.67 hours on business administration. Income from the contracts can vary; cited research places grazier income between roughly $262 per acre per year in the broader eastern U.S. and $509 per acre per year in New York. Prices tend to be higher in New York and lower elsewhere on the East Coast.

Why should it matter

Solar is increasing rapidly. According to the Solar Energy Industries Association, there was over 200,000 megawatts of utility-scale solar installed in the USA as of 2024, with an estimated 30,000–40,000 more megawatts expected to be added by 2029. All of these sites will require vegetation management. Businesses are also changing: Carolina Solar Services was, at the time of the Cornell Small Farms profile, experimenting with a subscription-based system where they charge per acre. While sheep may not fully replace mowers, the data so far on soil health, forage quality, and long-term costs, suggests real potential, provided contracts, water access, and labor are properly accounted for.