Where to Listen:
Livestock farmers in Wisconsin are getting excited about solar! MG&E’s Tyto solar project is home to about 13,000 solar panels, 30 acres of thriving plants, and a flock of happy sheep.
Amy takes a behind-the-scenes look at the solar energy project where 145 hungry sheep are hard at work this summer.
Host:
Amy Barrilleaux
Guests:
John Armstrong, manager of renewable engineering, Madison Gas and Electric
Beau Stafford, Wiscovery Farms
Resources for You:
Episode 40: Surprising Environmental Impacts of Solar in Wisconsin
Analysis: Solar produces 100 times more energy per acre than corn grown for ethanol
Transcript:
Amy Hello, welcome to the Defender, Wisconsin’s environmental podcast. I’m Amy Barrilleaux. The Defender is powered by Clean Wisconsin, your environmental voice since 1970. So I have an interesting question. What do you think it sounds like on a solar farm? Well, a visit to Tyto Solar Project in Fitchburg might surprise you.
Beau Sheep Sheep Sheep Sheep Sheep Sheep Sheep! C’mon Girls!
Amy Yep, it’s a bunch of sheep. Turns out more and more solar farms in Wisconsin are becoming actual farms for livestock. On this episode, we’ll meet some sheep, learn about energy, and find out why livestock farmers in Wisconsin are getting excited about solar. That’s right now on The Defender. Nestled in the middle of some conventional cornfields in Dane County, there’s a pretty unconventional farm. MG&E’s Tyto Solar Project is home to about 13,000 solar panels, a whole bunch of thriving plants, and a flock of happy sheep. I headed there to meet John Armstrong, the manager of renewable engineering at Madison Gas and Electric, and eventually run into Beau Stafford from Wiscovery Farms to find out how this solar and sheep farm came to be.
Amy We just walked in the fence line, I guess, for this solar project. Explain to me what we’re looking at here.
John So right now we’re looking at a sheep grazing mixed site. So what that means is we worked with a sheep grazer and we seeded the site with a mix that would work well with sheep. And what we’re trying to do is reduce our O&M costs and utilize a different type of mowing practice. Instead of normal mowing practices, we’re utilizing sheep to graze our fields.
Amy We’re here at ground level. It doesn’t really look that big when you’re standing next to it. How many, I guess, homes does this solar project power?
John Great question. So this power is about 1,300 homes a year. We’re on about 30 acres of land right now. That’ll be pretty standard, but you can, you can bump that number up based on the panels you get, the efficiencies of the cabling throughout your site. But in general, this is like a good estimate about 1 ,300 homes.
Amy OK, so as we’re walking here, there’s a little dirt road that we’re on. And either side, we’ve got panels. But we’ve also got, you called it a mix, but like a whole bunch of different plants here. And these plants are supposed to be, I guess, tasty for sheep.
John That’s one way to put it. Yeah, we have a couple of different mixes throughout our service territory. So this is one of our six distribution tide solar projects. A few of our other sites use a Wisconsin native pollinator mix. So lots of blooming flowers all throughout the year. This one has a little bit less blooming flowers throughout the year. But if you if you had a video camera, you could see there are still like black eyed Susans so I can see where I’m standing. But this one is more focused on on keeping the sheep happy and healthy.
Amy Speaking of sheep, I mean, we can see them grazing off in the distance. So this is what you’re using instead of mowing this property.
John Yeah, yeah, the sheep are, they’re honestly doing a fantastic job. Um, they will sit at this site and Beau will use, um, a sort of device on their collars, almost like an electrical fence for a, for a dog. Um, and it’ll beep at them when they’re outside their GPS zone of where they should eat for the day. And he actually just uses an app on his phone to move the sheep. So he calls them paddocks. He’ll move them paddock to paddock each, each day and have the whole site grazed eventually. After X number of days, let’s say just, after 15 days, maybe the whole site will be grazed. But yeah, they do a great job. I would argue that they do a better job than mowing. They don’t leave thatch behind. So when you cut vegetation down, that vegetation falls to the ground, you have a foot or two of vegetation just laying on the ground that dries up and it becomes a layer of thatch. When you have sheep, they eat it and they poop it out and there’s no thatch, so it’s a really good way to keep your vegetation healthy and happy.
Amy This is just a normal project that MGE has, a normal solar project. What I guess inspired MGE to say, hey, let’s get some sheep out here in the middle of our solar panels?
John It was a really cool opportunity. So One Energy was the developer of this project and they presented it to us a couple of years ago and they had a public hearing down at the Fitchburg Library. And one of the people that came to that hearing was Beau and he mentioned that he had a farm nearby and he was talking about his organic farm and that he’s interested in all sorts of cool, new ways to do farming. And so One Energy and Beau kind of got in this relationship and Beau was like, you know, I could try sheep grazing on the property. I live right next door. So we just got to talking, Beau, One Energy, and MG&E and it really was just like a perfect situation where it was a great site to just try out like pilot sheep grazing.
Amy And so this site opened in 2024. How long has it been grazed? Has it been like from the very beginning?
John Yep. Yeah. So this, they had to do one cut of mowing to let the vegetation really take hold from their root system. If you have sheep trample on it the first year, you could really, really damage their root systems. So it was just one, one mow and then the sheep were welcomed on and they’ve been, they’ve been going to town ever since. So yeah, what you see is a sheep graze site right now.
Amy What was it like for you the first time you came out here and saw this site as we’re seeing it today with really healthy vegetation everywhere, under the panels, around the panels and then a bunch of happy, active sheep out there.
John I mean, it’s so cool. It’s really fun to have the sheep here. Great, great way to get the community excited. I feel like I’ve had, I’ve done a lot of tours and everyone’s seen, it like the grand finale almost is like, okay, where are the sheep at? Let’s check out the sheep. So I think it’s been a home run. It’s worked really well. And I’m kind of excited to see what they do as Beau ramps up his services even more, maybe more sheep, more sites. So yeah, we’ll see where it goes.
Amy Explain to me, I guess, what your job is at MG&E, and I think we’ll just keep walking toward the sheep as we.. Eventually we’ll arrive at the sheep! What is your kind of role over at MG &E?
John So, uh, I’m the manager of renewable engineering. Um, we’re, we were a small group, but mighty I’ll say. So, we deal with capital projects and the maintenance. So we’re focused on wind projects, solar projects and battery storage projects. So our group is building three new battery storage projects this year. And then next year we’re building the Sunnyside energy center and then a couple more distribution type projects. But the Sunnyside Energy Center is 20 megawatts of solar and 40 megawatts of batteries. So we’re involved in new projects and then we’re also involved with maintaining the site. So we are in this project right now, Tyto. It’s maintained by One Energy, but we also have a few of our own sites that we’re maintaining ourselves. So kind of doing a whole slew of things.
Amy Is this an exciting time? I mean you’re not only you’re building solar projects and battery storage projects and now you got sheep on there. You know it feels like there’s a lot of new stuff happening all at once.
John Oh yeah, this is an amazing time to be a electrical engineer at a utility. I really love it. I’m just thinking if you were an electrical engineer in a utility several decades ago, it was pretty obvious what you were building. It was coal or natural gas generation. And now there seems to be so many different mix, a mix of generation you can build.
Amy So what got you interested in this? I mean, I guess you’re an electrical engineer by training. So how did you sort of think, OK, clean renewable energy is a good path?
John Not to sound cheesy, but I guess kind of just as a kid I’ve always wanted to you know help the help the Earth help the world. So this was I really – liked math growing up and engineering so this is just kind of like a natural fit for me So yeah, it’s just kind where my where I wanted to go where I want to be.
Amy We’re starting to hear the sheep. I don’t know if we can hear them on this microphone or not, but they’re definitely wondering who we are right now. So you started working, have you always worked on clean energy projects or did you get training back when you were in school for solar and things like that?
John Not really, not until I joined the workforce really, was when the training started. Before that, my initial entry into the workforce was a field engineer doing transmission line work and substation work, and then I carried over into the renewable space. So yeah, didn’t have as much training. I feel like now like University of Wisconsin, there’s a lot of renewable classes you can take. Back in 2010-ish time period wasn’t as many renewable classes, so. Yeah, didn’t have as much training as maybe kids do now, students do now.
Amy Do you ever think, you know, as we’re standing here, we’re watching sheep really literally running underneath the panels, apparently excited there for a second when we came up. Did you ever that you were gonna be standing in the middle of a solar project with sheep, giving people tours?
John Well, you know, I’m trying to push MG&E to try other animals, too. It’s been so fun, but no, I’ve never thought that this was gonna be a reality. This is just a cool, a cool project to be a part of.
Amy Tell me about other plans that MG&E might have because I think right now people might be feeling like, you know, clean energy was being well supported and now maybe the rug’s being yanked out a little. So I think it can be helpful for people to hear about more projects like this one.
John MGE still – here comes Beau – MGE has their 2030 carbon goals so we still want to be 80% carbon neutral from our 2005 numbers. So that is still happening. We still have our 2050 goals of being carbon neutral. So people shouldn’t get disheartened by change of political atmosphere. We’re still building solar projects. We’re looking for wind projects throughout Wisconsin and Iowa. I would say it’s just going to be a little more challenging.
Amy Alright, thanks. And you mentioned Beau pulled up on the four-wheeler, it looks like, so.. Nice to meet you.
Beau Nice to meet you I’m Beau.
Amy Thank you for meeting me out here today. I’ve already heard a lot about you.
Beau Oh boy, oh no! Leave all the good stuff for the sheep.
Amy The sheep kind of took off when we got close, like we were untrusted interlopers.
Beau Yeah, they don’t see many visitors, you know. They kind of keep to themselves. They’re hard at work right now, so you gotta let them do their thing, and they’re happy, though. They’re spread out really well and having a good time, so you probably didn’t bother them too much.
Amy As long as there’s food, I think they’re happy.
Beau Absolutely.
Amy So we were just talking about how this came to be, I guess I started with you hearing that there was gonna be a solar project nearby. So first tell me about your farm and then how you got connected here.
Beau Yeah, so we own a 56-acre farm just kitty-corner to the solar site, or the solar site property. And we bought the farm in 2019 and then we started with organic small square hay and then, we did some compost here and there. And then we started with sheep. We wanted to get into livestock eventually and originally we were thinking maybe we’ll get some feeder calves, something easy. But then I had a meeting with One Energy. Community meeting when they were about to build the site and we showed up there. I was worried about what they would plant here and how it would impact our farm and the hay that we produce and after a while talking to them you know they said well have you ever raised sheep? I thought well yeah when I was a kid I did some you know fair projects and stuff and then my wife and I talked it over and we said well maybe sheep is the way to go. You know we have young kids We had a, what, a two and a four year old at the time. Thought well maybe you know cows might be a little big for them. And then yeah we got our first flock of sheep and then worked with MG&E to do the solar grazing contract and yeah now we’ve been solar grazing.
Amy And so what do you use the sheep for? Wool or what are you actually making with the sheep?
Beau So this breed is a Katahdin breed, so they’re a meat breed. So we usually take them to market once they reach about 100, 220 pounds. That’s usually about the best weight. And then the boys will go to market, and the girls will stay here because we need more and more sheep.
Amy So if you were to not have a place to graze the sheep, if you only had your land, how would that work out?
Beau Yeah, that’s a really good point. So we, you know, we only have 56 acres. So we’re, you now, first generation farm, we, we started small and we, normally we would have a flock of about a hundred sheep that we could comfortably maintain at our place, doing rotational grazing while also producing enough hay for the winter. But by having this ground here at Tyto, we’re able to increase our flock size because we can save our land for the hay production. And then the sheep can be grazing in the summer here.
Amy And so they’re looking pretty happy. They’re kind of spread out all around and under the solar panels. How many sheep are here and how long are they gonna stay and eat?
Beau Sure, yeah. We have 145 on site right now. We just added about 25 just because with the amount of rain that we’re having, we needed to up our stocking density. As you can see, things have been really taking off here. So they’re doing a good job on everything. We worked them around the edge of the site and now they’re coming back. We’ll keep them on site. They’re doing about an acre, 1.6 acres per day, I’d say, comfortably. The lambs have reached that point where they’re really starting to feed. So we’re starting to increase the paddock size daily. So we move them daily and they’re able to just chew through it.
Amy So what’s the reaction of people when you tell them, oh yeah, I’m a farmer and I raise sheep and I bring them to solar projects to basically maintain the land around the panels.
Beau Most farmers, I’d say, have heard about it. Typical people think, well, that’s a really cool idea, you know, they, they like the idea of blending renewable energy generation with agriculture instead of just doing one or the other. Um, and it’s, it’s worked really well for us. Some, a lot of people don’t really know what it takes for animal husbandry practices and things like that. So there’s a lot that happens behind the scenes, not just on site, but also making sure the sheep are healthy, that they’re happy, that the, you especially for for breeding season, things like that, making sure we have enough stocking density for next year. But a lot of people, when we tell them we have baby lambs, that’s when people, their eyes light up, because that’s, who doesn’t want to cuddle a baby lamb?
Amy That’s true, but it’s the big sheep that are doing the real eating, it looks like.
Beau Right, that’s right, yep. Now the big sheep are doing a lot of the eating, but even early in the season, the ewes that are still nursing their lambs need a lot more calories to keep up. So they’re eating in overdrive early in season, which is really good so they can chew down the vegetation well. And then the lambs start to transition more to grazing on vegetation. So that’s where we’re at right now. The lamb size has really taken off.
Amy Okay, so we’ve got some hungry, I guess adolescent sheep out here.
Beau Exactly.
Amy What was it like the first time you brought the sheep out to this project to start eating and taking care of the land?
Beau That’s a good question. We really didn’t know what to expect. You know, I had heard of solar grazing. I know that sheep eat vegetation. I know, you know, outside of the panels and outside of a solar site, they’ll do a really good job on keeping vegetation low and controlled. And I knew that they would do that. The one question I thought in the back of my head was, how are they gonna do on the weeds? How are they going to do, you now, with around equipment and things like that? Honestly, they’ve exceeded every expectation I had for them. The first thing they go for is the weeds. Then they go after the grass. They love it. The panels, you can see the sheep are really spread out on this site. Typically when sheep are spread out, that means they’re really calm. When they get really close together, they flock together and they stay close. That’s usually when they’re scared or they’re threatened. And on site, we regularly see them spaced out all throughout.
Amy Before this, had you ever been up this close to a solar panel before?
Beau Uh, not on a solar generation site like this, but for a home and things like that, I’ve been kind of around them, never really worked around them. Um, but yeah, this is, I guess the first time for, you wouldn’t call it necessarily utility scale, but, yeah, something like that.
Amy I mean, when you first started out deciding to become a farmer, did you ever picture yourself becoming a farmer among solar panels like this?
Beau Not at all. No, when we bought the farm, you know, we thought, well, we want to raise our kids on a farm. We want to have that experience for them. And I thought I’d be driving my tractor around in circles and paying the mortgage that way. But honestly, this has been a lot more fun, a lot of more interesting. It’s been cool because I feel like we’re kind of more on the cutting edge of agricultural practices. And it’s been really exciting.
Amy Are your kids excited about what you do? Because it feels, yeah, like this is kind of like the future and the past meeting.
Beau They are, obviously we can’t bring them out on site often, but we had an event last year where the governor came and I was able to have the kids there and they were running up and down here. They were having a blast.
Amy So do you ever talk to people who are surprised that there can be so much good sheep food growing around the solar panels that there’s so much, I guess, life in a project area like this?
Beau I don’t know. I think that most people think that there is quite a bit of vegetation. I think everyone just assumes somebody comes in and mows it. They don’t think of, you know, well maybe grazing could work because they don’t understand the idea of grazing or managed grazing. So when I explain it to them that, you, know we offer fresh vegetation every day. It’s like offering fresh veggies to your family every day, you. Know the sheep get big, they get They’re healthier, they’re, you know. They do a really good job of growing, which is, which works well for us, because we’re a farm first and then a solar grazer. So, our goal is to make sure that we have marketable sheep and they produce well. And then the benefit of having them at a solar site, just for land use, especially as we discussed, but also for the health of the animals.
Amy And this now is not the only site where you are grazing sheep, is that right?
Beau Yeah, we’re doing three sites right now. So we just had them here first and then we sent them over to Hermsdorf and that’s a pollinator planted site. Did a really good job there. Then they came back here because the vegetation was starting to get up. Then we’ll send them over to Strix next about what about a mile from here, so
Amy How long is it going to take these sheep to take care of? I mean, it’s a lot of vegetation here. So to kind of bring this back where it needs to be.
Beau Well, I figure, I think we have them scheduled for 21 days on site here, and they just started last week. So they’re just starting to do this site. They’re doing about 1.6 acres per day, so they should be through in about 21 days.
Amy Great, I was going to see if maybe we could get closer to some of these sheep out, maybe over there? Yeah. We’ll see.
Beau Uh just the key to them is just going real slow and you know acting like you know uh nothing out of norm or out of sorts
Amy And this is not the pollinator mix, this is the sheep mix, but it’s like tons of butterflies and bees around here.
Beau Yeah, I’ve seen a lot of pollinators on site, a lot of bees. We got grasshoppers season right now, so you got grass hoppers everywhere.
Amy Is that what the things are that I think are butterflies?
Beau Yeah, probably. But there are there are butterflies. We’ve seen them, quite a few of them, moss and things like that. Yeah, they might be getting keen to us now.
Amy They have little bells around their necks?
Beau Those are collars designed for virtual fencing. So the sheep, normally what you’d wanna do is if you wanna graze them, you would move polywire to keep them in a fenced in area for a certain amount of time so that they consume the vegetation. But with this, we received a grant to be able to have virtual collars or virtual fensing. So on my phone, I can set the outline of the paddock for them to be in. And then you might hear this high-pitched noise when they start to approach the site boundary or the paddock boundary. And then that will alert them to turn back. And if they don’t, then they receive a pulse to just remind them like, hey, get back into the paddocks.
Amy And you said you got a grant, was this a federal grant or?
Beau We got it through Dane County. Dane county offers it for Increasing, I don’t think it’s a transition to grass type of program, but it’s offered through them to enhance agriculture for grazing operations and make things better for land management. And then we received a private grant actually through the fund for Lake Michigan.
Amy These sheep, look, I mean, I see there’s one over there and that little guy, I guess, is right next to a pole that’s in the ground, like doesn’t care about the panels or anything, not afraid.
Beau Oh yeah, actually the interesting thing is these poles actually go down pretty far into the ground and they actually transfer the cooler air up through so I’ll find them with their heads kind of wrapped around the posts and things like that just for them to stay cool.
Amy But that’s exactly what he’s doing, he’s like hugging the…
Beau Yeah, he likes it, or no, that’s a she.
Amy I knew I was going to make a mistake.
Beau Yep, left ear with the tag is the lady, and right ear is a ram. Yep, she’s having a good time. And then obviously the shade, you could see them. They’re just tucked in and hanging out, chewing their cud, getting ready to go back to work.
Amy What is your hope, I guess, for the future of this kind of farming, which is known officially as agrovoltaics, which not a great, easy word to say, but what’s your hope for where this all leads?
Beau Well, I hope that as more, as we start to adopt more and more solar energy generation, that everyone thinks first, well, how can we enhance agriculture? Especially for younger generation farmers, you know, we have a pretty big issue right now where the average age of farmers in the United States, I believe, is 59. And that’s going to be turning over considerably. Young people and having access to farmland is really important. And these situations offer an alternative, offer an option for maybe it be solar grazing or vegetable production or some other type of agriculture. I think it would be really important for folks to at least consider the impacts of agriculture. This is Sweetie Pie. She’s named after my five-year-old daughter.
Amy She marched right up to you
Beau There’s probably about seven sweetie pies out here, just so you know. But no, she’s great. She was a great mom and she’s done a wonderful job, haven’t you? Yeah, she was the one that was trying to climb on the governor.
Amy Well, you know, she knows who’s important in a situation and that makes sense. Well, thank you so much for, you know, taking me out here and explaining all this. I really appreciate it. And I think obviously you have some very healthy, happy sheep here. So thanks so much.
Beau Yeah, of course. Thank you.
Amy And thank you for listening to The Defender. To find out how you can support solar and wind projects happening in Wisconsin, check out the show notes or log onto cleanwisconsin.org. I’ll also have a link to photos of the farm and videos of lots of sheep. I’m Amy Barrilleaux. Talk to you later.
