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Ecovoltaic principles for a more sustainable, ecologically informed solar energy future

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The majority of power generated by photovoltaic energy infrastructure is derived from ground-mounted solar arrays that prioritize energy production, minimize operating costs and, at best, accommodate limited ecosystem services. We argue that co-prioritizing ecosystem services and energy generation using an ecologically informed, ‘ecovoltaics’ approach to solar array design and operation will have multiple benefits for climate, biodiversity and the restoration of degraded lands.

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Fig. 1: Solar array design and management goals.
Fig. 2: How ecosystem services and attributes in degraded agroecosystems, rangelands or other low-statured ecosystems might be enhanced by an ecovoltaic approach.

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Acknowledgements

This work was funded by the US Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) through the Sustainable Agricultural Systems project entitled “Sustainably Co-locating Agricultural and Photovoltaic Electricity Systems (SCAPES),” led by the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, grant number: 2021-68012-35898, 2021–2025. The authors thank E. Peirce for her illustrations, as well as K. Condon for her assistance with figure formatting.

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  1. Graduate Degree Program in Ecology, Department of Biology, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA

    Matthew A. Sturchio & Alan K. Knapp

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  1. Matthew A. Sturchio
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  2. Alan K. Knapp
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Correspondence to Matthew A. Sturchio.

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Sturchio, M.A., Knapp, A.K. Ecovoltaic principles for a more sustainable, ecologically informed solar energy future. Nat Ecol Evol 7, 1746–1749 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-023-02174-x

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