Mike Gallagher at Square Roots Farm in Lanesborough has wanted to create shade for his cows during the hot summer months. Raised solar panels in the field where his livestock roam, may just be the solution he is looking for.
Square Roots Farm owner Michael Gallagher collects eggs from the nesting boxes of his laying hens at the farm in Lanesborough. He hopes that a solar array will give comfort to his cows and chickens during the heat of the summer.
The Square Roots Farm property includes an uninsulated brick house dating to 1810 with a single bathroom. It’s heated by three wood stoves.
A cow and a calf in a field at Square Roots Farm in Lanesborough. A proposed 36-acre solar array on the farm would provide shelter from the hot sun for the animals.
Community Voices Editor
Mike Gallagher at Square Roots Farm in Lanesborough has wanted to create shade for his cows during the hot summer months. Raised solar panels in the field where his livestock roam, may just be the solution he is looking for.
Square Roots Farm owner Michael Gallagher collects eggs from the nesting boxes of his laying hens at the farm in Lanesborough. He hopes that a solar array will give comfort to his cows and chickens during the heat of the summer.
The Square Roots Farm property includes an uninsulated brick house dating to 1810 with a single bathroom. It’s heated by three wood stoves.
A cow and a calf in a field at Square Roots Farm in Lanesborough. A proposed 36-acre solar array on the farm would provide shelter from the hot sun for the animals.
LANESBOROUGH — For years, Square Roots Farm co-owner Michael Gallagher has been trying to find a way to give his cows a bit of relief from the summer sun.
He thought about planting trees, but it would take years for them to grow large enough to produce significant shade. Turns out, his answer comes directly from the sun.
Now, Gallagher is pairing up with renewable energy developer BlueWave Energy to install a 10-foot-high solar array spaced widely apart on two fields that will produce shade for his cows. The array — on 36.6 acres — will add 5.3 megawatts to the grid, enough electricity to power about 750 homes for a year. It will have tiltable cells to follow the sun as it changes angle during the day.
While solar arrays are often seen as a competing use for farmland, in an era of hotter summers, Gallagher hopes this solar array will prolong the growing season for forage and keep his cows, chickens and turkeys in comfort during the summer. It also will generate revenue, which will help stabilize Gallagher’s business operation.
It’s is a project that has been two years in the making already and likely won’t start producing electricity for another two years. Local and state permitting is just beginning.
“We’re going to move the cows the same way we do now,” Gallagher told the Conservation Commission last month. “They’ll move through one chunk, and move through the next chunk. They’ll sit under the solar panels when it’s really hot, and they’ll be fine.”
Gallagher and his wife, Ashley Amsden, installed a small solar array at their house a few years. Since then, he’s only had to pay for electricity for their home a couple months. That first step put renewable energy on his landscape.
“We’re in a place where we’re really at the forefront of things, which is super interesting and a little bit scary,” he said. “I am much more comfortable often in the second wave of adopting something. I want to see somebody else make it work, and then I want to copy it and make it better. But we are really much more towards the front of this.”
To investigate this concept, Gallagher took a ride to Palmer, where BlueWave has a similar installation. Gallagher could imagine the concept working for him. Then he had some persuading to do — both with BlueWave and with a local land trust.
Gallagher and Amsden bought their 185-acre farm from Berkshire Natural Resources Council in 2012 for $160,000. It included an uninsulated brick house dating to 1810 with a single bathroom. It’s heated by three wood stoves.
The price was depressed partly because of an Agricultural Preservation Restriction on 182 acres that Berkshire Natural Resources Council placed on the property and still owns. An Agricultural Preservation Restriction is a permanent deed restriction limiting use of the land to farming.
BlueWave wasn’t interested in touching a property with such a restriction, but Gallagher thought the fact that his was privately held might make a difference.
So, he approached Doug Brown, director of stewardship at Berkshire Natural Resources Council, about whether the provisions of the 1997 Agricultural Preservation Restriction might allow for this so-called dual use or agrivoltaic solar array.
“The most impactful was hearing from Michael himself,” Brown said. He came to understand the value of the shade for both the forage and the livestock.
Still, “It was very tricky,” Brown said. “We really had to look at it through the lens of the APR and what that language explicitly required of us and requires of the landowner.”
Brown acknowledged that people have strong opinions about solar arrays — both positive and negative — and about their visual impact on the landscape.
“We knew that making a decision in favor of this could be challenging for people in our community, in understanding why this is something that we were able to support in this setting,” he said. “We also knew that if we said no to this, it would have real impacts on the viability of Michael and Ashley’s farm operation and their future as stewards of that property.”
The certificate of approval on file at Berkshire North Registry of Deeds cites several benefits including shade for animals and crops, reduction in water loss, and giving the farmer “a new revenue stream from solar energy while continuing agricultural production, reducing financial risk.”
BlueWave Energy is all in. Under the name Pettibone Brook, BlueWave hired Weston & Sampson to prepare a 156-page notice of intent for the Conservation Commission. A Weston & Sampson engineer, two BlueWave employees and the consulting wetland scientist who mapped the property attended the recent meeting.
The Conservation Commission was expected to issue its decision this month pending a report from a state agency.
BlueWave has signed two agreements with Gallagher and Amsden: the first to lease the land for the solar cells, mechanicals and a single storage battery; the second for agricultural services. Both of these documents are necessary to win incentives under the Solar Massachusetts Renewable Target program.
Eversource hasn’t yet signed an agreement with BlueWave to run three-phase power to the farm from Summer Street and to accept the energy, but is expected to. An Eversource spokeswoman deferred comment to the developer.
BlueWave has 11 projects operating or under construction in Massachusetts. Its first agrivoltaic project went online in 2021.
“We have seen firsthand the benefits this approach provides to farmers, the land, and the broader energy system, and we continue to expand our portfolio of dual-use projects,” said Joel Lindsey, vice president of project development at BlueWave, in an email. “Mike is a hardworking farmer that amplifies the good word of local agriculture and supplies his surrounding communities with pasture-raised meat and eggs.
“He’s innovative and seeks to diversify the farm,” Llndsey continued. “He’s determined to succeed (and thrive) at one of today’s prevalent challenges: owning a family farm in Massachusetts. We are excited to continue working with him.”
Massachusetts expanded incentives for solar systems on farms in 2022. There are now 12 in operation across the state generating 16 megawatts, or enough electricity to power 2,700 homes. More than 10 similar systems are under development and three are in early phases.
Gallagher said the constant income stream over the 20-year lease will be helpful. He and Amsden might insulate the attic or add a second bathroom to their home before their children become teenagers.
Tthey’re also considering reinvesting in the farm.
“There are lots of things on the farm that are good enough but could definitely work better and smoothly for us,” he said. “But the biggest thing about it is, it sort of takes a little bit off of this big, ‘what if’ worry that sometimes keeps us up at night. What if we get avian flu? What if the tractor catches fire tomorrow?“
At the end of the lease, the plan would be to either decommission the solar array or to renew it — if it makes sense at the time.
In the meantime, Berkshire Natural Resources Council has purchased a neighboring parcel to the northwest and holds an easement on Square Roots Farm to site a trail from the ridge line to Cheshire Reservoir across the road.
“We’re going to be investing in that trail development in the next few years, likely around the same time that, if permitted, this development moves forward,” Brown said of Berkshire Natural Resources Council. “We hope to continue to work with Michael and Ashley and the developer to create interpretive information that helps the way the public really understand the benefits of these systems in agricultural settings.”
Gallagher can imagine what Square Roots will look like once the solar array is up and running.
“We already get people who stop on the side of the road because they want to take pictures of the cows and the chickens,” he said. “And I hope we get people who are still doing the same thing, and they say, ‘Look at all the cows under the solar panels. Look how chill they are.’”
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Jane Kaufman is Community Voices Editor at The Berkshire Eagle. She can be reached at jkaufman@berkshireeagle.com or 413-496-6125.
We have seen firsthand the benefits this approach provides to farmers, the land, and the broader energy system.
Joel Lindsey, BlueWave Energy vice president of project development
It would essentially operate as a small power plant for four hours when fully charged, with construction starting at the end of 2028 or the beginning of 2029 and operation beginning about a year later.
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