An Australian farmer put sheep beneath solar panels; he reported 15% more wool and green grass surviving through drought

Tom Warren runs a sheep farm near Dubbo, in New South Wales, Australia. More than seven years ago, around 2019, he put in a solar farm on part of his land. He did not expect it to change life for his sheep, but it did. His farm revenue from the sheep enterprise increased 15 per cent, and the wool itself came out cleaner and more consistent thanks to steadier grazing conditions. His pastures remained green during a drought when the land all around became dry. This is not an isolated case. In a 2025 review study published in the Small Ruminant Research journal, researcher W.C. Stewart and colleagues synthesized dozens of studies on this practice, called “solar grazing.”

The shade that changed everything

Short grass is essential around solar farms to avoid shading the panels, and someone has to keep it down, whether through cutting, herbicides, or grazing. Both cutting and herbicide use cost money. Grazing sheep offers a free or low-cost alternative, since farmers provide the service themselves in exchange for access to the land.


That was the case for Warren and his neighbor Tony Inder, a grazier who now manages about 2,000 sheep between rows of panels on his property in New South Wales. The panels provide shade for the flock. They also create what farmers call "drip lines," water and condensation that run off the panel edges and drip onto the grass below, adding a bit of extra moisture during dry spells. Karin Stark, director of the National Renewables in Agriculture Conference in Australia, defines it as a farm diversification strategy. Farmers no longer depend solely on rain; landowners can earn lease income from the panels, while graziers cut costs through free or low-cost access to grazing land.

Wool, grass, and what the research actually shows

Blocking the sun would seem likely to hurt pasture growth. This is sometimes true since results vary by region, and Warren's own experience of steady green pasture through drought isn't guaranteed everywhere, but the Small Ruminant Research review suggests there is more than one side to the coin here. According to the research, grass in the shadow of solar panels has higher nitrogen content, which could help in digestion by the sheep, although the overall volume of grass does not always increase. The same review cites a 2021 Oregon study in which forage production fell by 38 percent under panels in that pasture, showing that results can vary widely by region and season.

A separate study titled ‘Agrivoltaic Grazing Systems for a Sustainable Future: A Multi-Disciplinary Review & Gap Analysis,’ published in 2025 in the journal Earth’s Future, adds another layer to the picture. Researchers say that when sheep were given the choice of resting under solar panels or ordinary shade cloth, they chose the panels 38 per cent of the time, compared with 1 per cent for the shade cloth. The review suggests that solar panels may cool the air beneath them more effectively than shade cloth, with the rest of their time spent grazing or resting elsewhere in the pasture. Heat stress matters because graziers in separate U.S. reports on solar grazing have suggested that calmer, cooler sheep put more energy into producing fleece. The relationship between comfort and wool output is still being studied and isn't yet a settled scientific fact.

Why this isn't happening everywhere yet

If such a grazing system has such high potential, why is solar grazing not implemented all over the world? The answer can be found in a 2023 report on solar grazing from the Agrivoltaic Resource Center in Australia, led by Karin Stark: although many solar companies claim they want to raise livestock there, their site designs often don't reflect that intention: gates are poorly positioned, fencing is added as an afterthought, and the result is a solar farm ill-suited for sheep, even when developers say they support the idea in principle. Stark says developers need to start talking to farmers sooner, before they break ground, not after.

InSPIRE, the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory's research program on designing solar facilities for agrivoltaics and animal grazing, looks at exactly this question: how solar sites can be designed from the ground up to work for both energy production and grazing animals, not just one or the other. Early results are similar to what Warren has found on his own land: grazing animals can cut down on vegetation management costs and give farmers a second income stream.

What this means going forward

For readers tuning into debates about land use and renewable energy, this story offers something useful: evidence that solar power and farming don't always have to compete for the same acres. Warren's sheep are in shade and shelter, and according to him, his income no longer depends only on the rains. This is not a perfect fix, because results depend on climate conditions, forage type, and site design. Nevertheless, as solar farms proliferate across the world, letting sheep graze beneath them seems less like a novelty and more like ordinary good sense.