Billed as “the largest ever,” IGNITE 10 did it — sold out the 1,200 seat Minneapolis Depot with a vibrant crowd of civic leaders, creative connectors, and design-savvy beer geeks. (Congrats Patrick & the Ignite crew!)
Stacking the benefits of America’s rapid deployment of solar — by using the land under and around the panels for biodiverse pollinator habitat — is an idea worth sharing. As you’ll see in the embedded video, just a single acre of pollinator-friendly solar is land equivalent to 605 homes planting 6’x12’ pollinator gardens — and then maintaining them for 25 years.
Know of an audience that would like to hear about it in person (e.g. Rotary, corporation, organization, church group)? Please get in touch — davis@fresh-energy.org.
Here are some of the resources I used in preparing my IGNITE talk:
- Rapidly declining cost and growth of deployment of solar
- Study: The Effects of Solar Farms on Local Biodiversity (PDF)
- Pollinators are necessary for one third of our food (Mn Dept of Agriculture)
- Soil and stormwater benefits of solar sites with native landscape
- Farmers are benefitting from using some land for solar
- Andersen Corporation’s CEO Jay Lund’s opinion piece about pollinator habitat on solar sites