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Ewes from Owens Farms in Sunbury graze on the grass at a solar farm at Susquehanna University in Selinsgrove, where the animals will stay until late fall, on Thursday, April 9, 2026.
Ewes from Owens Farms in Sunbury begin to graze as soon as they are released from a trailer at a solar farm at Susquehanna University in Selinsgrove, where the animals will stay until late fall, on Thursday, April 9, 2026.
Two ewes from Owens Farms in Sunbury keep an eye on a roaming photographer while grazing at a solar farm at Susquehanna University in Selinsgrove, where the sheep will stay until late fall, on Thursday, April 9, 2026.
Caroline Owens of Owens Farms in Sunbury opens the gate to her trailer to release sheep to graze at a solar farm at Susquehanna University in Selinsgrove until late fall on Thursday, April 9, 2026.
A portion of the 12,000 solar panels at a solar farm at Susquehanna University in Selinsgrove is shown on Thursday, April 9, 2026. Sheep from Owens Farm in Sunbury arrive each spring, with two to three dozen grazing the site until late fall when they return home. The practice keeps the grass trimmed without the need for mowers.
Caroline Owens of Owens Farms in Sunbury opens the gate to her trailer and watches sheep run to graze at a solar farm at Susquehanna University in Selinsgrove until late fall on Thursday, April 9, 2026.
A portion of the 12,000 solar panels at a solar farm at Susquehanna University in Selinsgrove sits in the sun on Thursday, April 9, 2026. Sheep from Owens Farm in Sunbury arrive each spring, with two to three dozen grazing the site until late fall when they return home. The practice keeps the grass trimmed without the need for mowers.
A lone ewe from Owens Farms in Sunbury keeps an eye on a roaming photographer between grazing and moving around at a solar farm at Susquehanna University in Selinsgrove, where the sheep will stay until late fall, on Thursday, April 9, 2026.
Ewes from Owens Farms in Sunbury graze on the grass at a solar farm at Susquehanna University in Selinsgrove, where the animals will stay until late fall, on Thursday, April 9, 2026.
Ewes from Owens Farms in Sunbury graze on the grass at a solar farm at Susquehanna University in Selinsgrove, where the animals will stay until late fall, on Thursday, April 9, 2026.
Ewes from Owens Farms in Sunbury graze on the grass at a solar farm at Susquehanna University in Selinsgrove, where the animals will stay until late fall, on Thursday, April 9, 2026.
A portion of the 12,000 solar panels at a solar farm at Susquehanna University in Selinsgrove is shown on Thursday, April 9, 2026. Sheep from Owens Farm in Sunbury arrive each spring, with two to three dozen grazing the site until late fall when they return home. The practice keeps the grass trimmed without the need for mowers.
A lone ewe from Owens Farms in Sunbury grazes under a row of solar panels at a solar farm at Susquehanna University in Selinsgrove on Thursday, April 9, 2026.
A panoramic view of 12,000 solar panels at a solar farm at Susquehanna University in Selinsgrove on Thursday, April 9, 2026. Sheep from Owens Farm in Sunbury arrive each spring, with two to three dozen grazing the site until late fall, when they return home. The practice keeps the grass trimmed without the need for mowers.
Ewes from Owens Farms in Sunbury graze on the grass at a solar farm at Susquehanna University in Selinsgrove, where the animals will stay until late fall, on Thursday, April 9, 2026.
Ewes from Owens Farms in Sunbury begin to graze as soon as they are released from a trailer at a solar farm at Susquehanna University in Selinsgrove, where the animals will stay until late fall, on Thursday, April 9, 2026.
Caroline Owens of Owens Farms in Sunbury opens the gate to her trailer to release sheep to graze at a solar farm at Susquehanna University in Selinsgrove until late fall on Thursday, April 9, 2026.
A portion of the 12,000 solar panels at a solar farm at Susquehanna University in Selinsgrove is shown on Thursday, April 9, 2026. Sheep from Owens Farm in Sunbury arrive each spring, with two to three dozen grazing the site until late fall when they return home. The practice keeps the grass trimmed without the need for mowers.
A portion of the 12,000 solar panels at a solar farm at Susquehanna University in Selinsgrove sits in the sun on Thursday, April 9, 2026. Sheep from Owens Farm in Sunbury arrive each spring, with two to three dozen grazing the site until late fall when they return home. The practice keeps the grass trimmed without the need for mowers.
A lone ewe from Owens Farms in Sunbury keeps an eye on a roaming photographer between grazing and moving around at a solar farm at Susquehanna University in Selinsgrove, where the sheep will stay until late fall, on Thursday, April 9, 2026.
Ewes from Owens Farms in Sunbury graze on the grass at a solar farm at Susquehanna University in Selinsgrove, where the animals will stay until late fall, on Thursday, April 9, 2026.
Ewes from Owens Farms in Sunbury graze on the grass at a solar farm at Susquehanna University in Selinsgrove, where the animals will stay until late fall, on Thursday, April 9, 2026.
Ewes from Owens Farms in Sunbury graze on the grass at a solar farm at Susquehanna University in Selinsgrove, where the animals will stay until late fall, on Thursday, April 9, 2026.
A portion of the 12,000 solar panels at a solar farm at Susquehanna University in Selinsgrove is shown on Thursday, April 9, 2026. Sheep from Owens Farm in Sunbury arrive each spring, with two to three dozen grazing the site until late fall when they return home. The practice keeps the grass trimmed without the need for mowers.
A panoramic view of 12,000 solar panels at a solar farm at Susquehanna University in Selinsgrove on Thursday, April 9, 2026. Sheep from Owens Farm in Sunbury arrive each spring, with two to three dozen grazing the site until late fall, when they return home. The practice keeps the grass trimmed without the need for mowers.
 
In 2023, Boston-based solar developer New Leaf Energy and property owners Gerald and Jewel Gruber sought permission from the West Lampeter Township Zoning Hearing Board to build a 25-acre installation of solar panels on their farmland.
The pitch to the zoning board was that sheep would graze around and under the panels.
The property owners tried to argue that the solar array qualifies as agriculture because of the plan to raise sheep underneath them.

The zoning board did not buy it. Nor did the courts, after appeals from Gruber and New Leaf.
A ruling from the Court of Common Pleas, affirmed in January by the Commonwealth Court on appeal, concluded that a solar array on top of a sheep pasture did not conform to the township’s rules around use of agricultural land.
The court decision was a win for farmland preservation, according to Jeff Swinehart, president and CEO for the Lancaster Farmland Trust. It matched his organization’s view that solar arrays are not agriculture. The rulings affirmed that a farm with solar panels erected on the land, and not on a barn or house, clearly violates the deed restrictions property owners use to preserve their land, according to Swinehart.
“When we’re sitting on the most productive non-irrigated soils here in Lancaster County and we’re within a day’s drive to large metro areas with big populations, it just seems that the best use (of that land) is food or fiber rather than producing energy,” Swinehart said.
Advocates of solar energy like Daniel Dotterer, a Clinton County farmer who testified in the case as the shepherd who would be grazing sheep on the property, saw the ruling as a setback to what they see as an opportunity for multi-generational family farmers like Dotterer to sustain their business and, yes, preserve farmland.
“Ninety-nine percent of all development is permanent,” Dotterer said. “You put in a house, you put a Walmart, a Dollar General, that land is gone forever. The beauty of solar is it’s all removable.”
The property owner of the West Lampeter Township zoning case, Gruber, argued that point in court, saying that his land would become “pasture again” after the solar panels are decommissioned and removed.
Solar advocates argue installing solar arrays on farmland aids the preservation of that land in its own way, at least if the alternative is development.
Unlike a housing subdivision or a shopping center, solar arrays can be removed after their useful life, usually between 30 and 50 years. That ultimately protects farmland, advocates said.
But some residents who live next to solar projects see them as an industrial presence; ugly compared to green hills of crops and pastures.
Two ewes from Owens Farms in Sunbury keep an eye on a roaming photographer while grazing at a solar farm at Susquehanna University in Selinsgrove, where the sheep will stay until late fall, on Thursday, April 9, 2026.
Mixing pastures and solar arrays is a burgeoning practice that goes by various names. Dotterer prefers the term “solar grazing,” but researchers and solar industry people also refer to it as agrivoltaics, which also includes growing crops under solar panels, not just raising livestock.
According to a 2021 U.S. Department of Energy study, growing the country’s solar power to 50% of all energy production could require 10.4 million acres of land by 2050. Of the new land to be taken up in new solar installations, 90% would be in rural communities, the study predicted.
Recent studies from Cornell University and the American Farmland Trust estimated that some 80% of that land for solar production could end up being farmland.
Growing crops like lettuce under solar panels has shown promise, but questions of making the practice cost-effective and commercially viable remain, experts said. Sheep grazing under solar panels, meanwhile, has proven an effective replacement for lawn mowers that can’t reach under the arrays mounted on steel supports just a few feet off the ground.
“If you look at the number of projects being proposed in the state, we’re going to run out of sheep,” said Tom Murphy, solar energy adviser for the Pennsylvania State Association of Township Supervisors.
Other livestock like cattle may be more plentiful in the U.S. and Pennsylvania, Murphy said, but they require more height to graze under solar panels and tend to damage unprotected solar equipment.
Though the U.S. Department of Agriculture says Lancaster County is home to the largest sheep population of any county in Pennsylvania, with 10,111 in 2022, Dotterer, policy experts and stakeholders in Pennsylvania’s solar industry, municipal land planning, agriculture and energy did not know of any agrivoltaic operations here.
The county became home to the largest solar field in the state back in 2013, when a 30-acre solar array went up on a former poultry farm owned by Gerald and Linda Kreider in East Drumore Township. But since then, solar developers have gravitated west to areas like Franklin County, where land is cheaper and continuous tracts of land are larger.
More than 2,000 megawatts of solar capacity have been certified in Pennsylvania through the state’s Alternative Energy Portfolio Standards program. That’s enough clean energy to power the combined households of Pittsburgh, Allentown, Erie, Scranton, York, and Williamsport — based on average electricity usage of 10,000 kilowatt-hours per year per household, and U.S. Census data estimating 2.4 persons per home.
A lone ewe from Owens Farms in Sunbury grazes under a row of solar panels at a solar farm at Susquehanna University in Selinsgrove on Thursday, April 9, 2026.
According to the Pennsylvania Utility Commission, Lancaster’s solar energy capacity stood at 122 megawatts last year, third among counties in Pennsylvania, behind York (127 megawatts) and Franklin (398 megawatts).
By comparison, the restarting of the Unit 1 reactor at Three Mile Island is expected to carry a capacity of 835 megawatts. Microsoft contracted with the plant’s owner to use the power for a data center.
The nascent practice of agrivoltaics raises unique questions for Lancaster County farmers, their non-farming neighbors and municipal officials alike about the use of undeveloped land for larger-scale solar fields, and whether they represent a threat to the future of farming or a lifeline.
In just the last few years, a growing number of farmers like Dotterer are pointing to agrivoltaics as a solution to the land-use pressures associated with solar energy.
For more than a decade, Pennsylvania has been an energy powerhouse, thanks to the Marcellus Shale boom. Since the 2010s, the commonwealth has been a net exporter of energy, becoming a central supplier for the Northeast.
But as Pennsylvania’s natural gas boom continues, surrounding states have set aggressive goals to expand their renewable energy portfolio, attracting developers in solar, wind and hydroelectric energy.
The increasing viability of solar power, helped by a steady decline in the price of solar panels over the last decade, has led sun-drenched states like Florida, Texas and California to see enormous gains in solar development, according to federal energy data.
Pennsylvania ranks 49th in the nation when it comes to how much its total energy production comes from renewable energy, according to Department of Energy data, 22 years after it became the first state to adopt renewable energy standards.
Meanwhile, the growth of data centers to fund the nation’s AI boom has placed additional demands on grid infrastructure and put price pressure on consumers, according to a 2025 report commissioned by PJM Interconnection, the nonprofit that operates the electrical grid across Washington, D.C. and 12 states, including Pennsylvania.
The rising cost of electricity has helped to offset some of the loss of federal tax incentives for solar developments under the Trump administration, said Andy Schell, senior marketing manager at Paradise Energy Solutions, a solar company in Paradise Township.
“That’s really driving a lot of the demand” in Pennsylvania and beyond, Schell said.
According to tracking site Cleanview, there are currently 238 solar projects in development in Pennsylvania, representing a total of 13,519 megawatts of new electricity capacity in the next few years.
While large-scale solar project developers have gravitated to Franklin County in particular, the number of smaller solar arrays continue to come online in Lancaster County and nationwide, as individual property owners look to offset the rise in consumer electricity rates.
Many Amish and Mennonite communities have adopted smaller solar installations as a cheaper and easier alternative to power manufacturing businesses, said Steve Nolt, professor of history and Anabaptist studies at Elizabethtown College.
Other farmers, like Mitch Shellenberger of Shelmar Acres in East Donegal Township have embraced roof-mounted solar arrays on buildings on barns, to offset their energy bills, a practice called “net-metering” that is also available to residential customers. Power they generate on their property is calculated against their energy bills, and excess energy can be sold off through the grid.
Shellenberger’s cattle and hog operation does not have the space for a pasture with or without solar panels, but he said he would have a hard time installing solar panels over Lancaster County’s prized soil.
Shellenberger said he wants farmland in Lancaster County to stay visible and part of the landscape. “You fill it up with panels, it looks like we’re living on Mars or something,” he said.
Roof-mounted systems for farmers have been the heart of Paradise Energy’s business in Lancaster County, Schell said.
“Our owners grew up farmers so they fully believe farmland should be used for farming, so we’re not in the market to take up farmland with solar panels,” Schell said.
Preserving farmland is not just about maintaining a way of life in Lancaster County, it’s also about the look and feel of a community.
That has dovetailed into concerns from homeowners that nearby solar installations could hurt their property values, according to Matthew Svetz, educator at the Penn State Ag Extension.
Early studies looking at the effect of solar fields on property values have indicated so far that solar fields have had little effect, Svetz said.
“A big part of it is that community aesthetic,” said Svetz. “Oftentimes these things are going to be sited on farmland and there’s this idea that (residents) want these nice pastures out there.”
Solar advocates concede those points, recognizing that Lancaster County’s makeup may not make agrivoltaics an ideal fit.
For one, Lancaster County’s farmland is largely family-owned and smaller than other agriculture-intensive parts of the country like the Midwest, where many farms grow thousands of acres of commodity crops like corn and soy.
Large-scale solar developers are generally looking for 300 to 700 acres of uninterrupted land that has close access to a power station to connect to the grid, Swinehart said.
“Our parcels are so fragmented, they average 72 acres in size and they inherently run into a preserved farm,” Swinehart said of Lancaster County.
That means there are few opportunities for solar developers to build the most profitable arrays at large scales that feed directly into the electric grid like a power plant.
Lancaster County is also well-populated, with lots of suburban pockets and residential developments running up against its agricultural areas. That makes it more likely for neighboring residents to find larger arrays intrusive, they said.
Solar grazing found Caroline Owens.
After Susquehanna University built a 14-acre solar array in 2017 (built on a former wheat field that adjoins a field station students and faculty use for environmental science research and education), school officials approached Owens about using sheep to maintain the field.
The 2,000-panel array has a 3.9-megawatt capacity, powering about 30% of the university’s electricity usage, according to Amanda O’Rourke, the school’s public relations manager.
Owens, whose 112-acre farm is a few miles from campus, had never heard of solar grazing when she took the job in 2018.
Caroline Owens of Owens Farms in Sunbury opens the gate to her trailer and watches sheep run to graze at a solar farm at Susquehanna University in Selinsgrove until late fall on Thursday, April 9, 2026.
Now, she teaches other sheep farmers about the practice.
Most large-scale solar arrays are owned and operated by solar companies, who lease land from property owners, a setup not unlike the natural gas boom in Western Pennsylvania.
Unchecked vegetation can obscure solar panels from sunlight and interfere with wiring and components that may need to be serviced. Weed-whackers and mowers are an option, of course, but they aren’t necessarily faster. Cutting the vegetation is often difficult work that landscaping services unfamiliar with working on solar fields tend to underestimate, Owens said.
Solar companies have become increasingly enthusiastic about solar grazing, at least in part because of its public-relations and environmental benefits, according to Owens. As a result, more solar developers are building arrays with sheep in mind, she said.
Sheep require a little bit more planning, according to Owens. They need access to water and the land should be planted with a mix of grasses the sheep prefer, and adequate fencing is needed to keep them penned on the site.
Some solar arrays also might still need a weed whacker to remove plants sheep avoid, Owens said.
The Cumberland County farmer said she’s aware that solar developments are not always locally popular, but she has found sheep tend to charm neighbors.
“People stop to watch and take photos,” Owens said.
Solar developers are increasingly embracing sheep grazing as part of their normal maintenance operations, Owens said, even if it isn’t always the cheaper option.
“Sheep are agriculture,” Owens said.
Research dispels environmental concerns over solar panels
Local opposition to solar panels is not always about aesthetics or property values, at least on the surface.
Matt Eckert, an East Earl Township resident, argued at a township zoning board hearing in March that a small ground solar installation planned on a 9-acre commercially-zoned property behind his house could lead to PFAS, known as forever chemicals, leaching into the ground and contaminating drinking water.
Eckert told LNP | LancasterOnline he is not wholly against the project or solar power, but he wants written assurances from the solar developer, Paradise Energy Solutions, that it will take steps to avoid any negative environmental impacts.
“Documentation that they’re PFAS-free and ensuring the field is prepared properly to allow for any remediation of PFAS if it’s detected,” Eckert said.
Other environmental concerns from the public regarding solar panels have cropped up elsewhere in the country, including worries of electromagnetic radiation, said Matthew Svetz, educator at the Penn State Ag Extension.
Svetz cautioned that modern solar panels have simply not been around long enough for there to be long-term studies to conclusively show what effect they may have on soil or the environment across their multi-decade lifespans.
But researchers, including at Penn State, so far have found no evidence that solar panels are shedding harmful chemicals, Svetz said, or radiation.
Recent studies from Michigan State University found a type of PFAS chemicals are sometimes used for certain coatings and sealants in solar panels, but they generally pose no health risk. They do not break down and contaminate water like other compounds classified as PFAS.
Researchers have focused extensively on some heavy metals that can be found in solar panels, like lead for soldered wiring connections, and found no evidence those were contaminating the ground either, Svetz said.
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