By Brian Naughton, Co-Founder Circle Two, LLC
When the Rio Grande went completely dry through Albuquerque this summer—a ten-mile stretch of empty riverbed—it provided a stark reminder of the precarious access to irrigation water for our local farmers. But at the Rio Grande Community Farm, the irrigation system kept running. The secret? Solar panels suspended above the crops, producing enough power to pump well water throughout the growing season.
This is agrivoltaics in action: using the same land for both renewable energy and food production. And after two years of research, the results are surprising in the best possible ways.
A Celebration of Innovation
On a sunny September afternoon, about fifty people gathered at the Los Poblanos Fields Open Space in Albuquerque’s North Valley. We were there to celebrate something you don’t see every day: three rows of solar panels suspended on tall metal poles, producing nearly 20 kilowatts of power, with hundreds of fruiting plants thriving underneath.
Rows of chard, tomatoes, chile, and blackberries grew both in the shade of the panels and in full New Mexico sun. At peak harvest time, these plants had already produced hundreds of pounds of food, with more to come.
The celebration brought together everyone who made this multi-year project possible—a true community effort.
The Partners Behind the Project
Jamie Welles, Executive Director of Rio Grande Community Farm, welcomed everyone to the site. Her non-profit organization manages over 50 acres at this City-owned Open Space, which serves as a working farm, wildlife refuge, and public education and recreational area. Rio Grande Community Farm champions regenerative agriculture and aims to run entirely on renewable energy—making this project a perfect fit to their broader mission.
Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller highlighted how the project aligns with the City’s goal of running on 100% renewable power. He also noted how this project embodies the broader goals of the Albuquerque’s Sustainability and Parks and Recreation Offices.
Dr. Ken Armijo from Sandia National Laboratories explained the unique solar technology, developed with Jim Clair from Ohio-based SkySun, LLC. Ken and Jim spent years refining a system that can withstand New Mexico’s punishing winds while incorporating something novel: the panels can raise and lower by up to four feet at the push of a button. (Watch this inspiring short film by NMPBS ¡COLORES! about Ken’s research and the motivation behind it: Harvesting the Sunshine, Conserving the Rio Grande)
We demonstrated this live. A single farmer can raise the entire system to allow space for a tractor to pass underneath. This design adapts solar to farming, rather than forcing farmers to adapt their practices to fixed panels—a key difference from typical agrivoltaics installations.
Representing my consulting company, Circle Two, I spoke to the broader opportunities this project opens up to reduce fossil fuel use in agriculture by using solar energy to power more of the tools we use, including electric tractors. As I spoke to this, North Valley farmer Andrew Stone drove up in his all-electric tractor, one of the first of its kind in New Mexico and a tangible vision for the future.
What the Research Explored
Dr. Donna Riley, Dean of UNM’s School of Engineering, recognized the many Lobos who contributed, including Professors Sang Han, David Hanson, and William Pockman, along with their graduate and undergraduate students.
One UNM team designed custom solar panels with varying proportions of opaque cells and clear areas. This explored the trade-off between power production and shade. Most solar panels block nearly all sunlight to maximize energy—these were different and could be customized to the crop underneath.
The other team studied how shade affected the ecosystem above and below ground. They installed sensors to track solar radiation, soil temperature and moisture, and even leaf-level photosynthesis rates.
After the growing season is complete, the partners will start digging through all the data to distill some exciting additional insights that are beyond our more casual observations. Stay tuned.
Boots on the Ground
There is the intention of designs and plans and goals of an experiment and then there is the daily reality of farming. But the dedicated farmers of Celestial Mountain Farm—Stef Graner, Logan Gillespie, and their crew, rose to the challenge to steward the project to a successful conclusion.
The farmers did everything: prepped fields, started seeds, transplanted hundreds of seedlings, irrigated, weeded (and weeded some more), harvested, and sold produce through multiple markets, retailers, and restaurants.
Stef shared some honest observations about farming under solar panels. Early on, the panels sat too low and restricted access to the growing beds. After adjustments, this improved significantly. Working around sensors and wires to cultivate crops also proved challenging at times, though such is the nature of a research experiment.
But the benefits? On 95-degree afternoons, everyone preferred working in the shade. Who wouldn’t?
The wildlife seemed to agree. Birds perched on the posts. Mushrooms and toads enjoyed the moist, shaded ground. Even the weeds showed preferences—bindweed clustered in the shade while Johnson grass chose full sun.
Off-Grid Irrigation: A Game-Changer
The agrivoltaics system extends beyond the field itself. The neighboring well house contains the equipment that pumps water from the farm’s only well to a cistern, then pressurizes it through pipes spanning the 16-acre field. Normally, this runs on grid power. But the research explored whether solar and a battery could handle the job completely off-grid.
The timing couldn’t be better. Peak irrigation happens during the hottest, sunniest months—an excellent match for solar power. The battery and power equipment were sized to run both pumps simultaneously on a representative summer day.
The result? Throughout the entire summer, the irrigation system ran entirely off-grid, powered only by the solar panels above the crops. This proves that a large field can be irrigated with surprisingly little solar infrastructure.
Water Resilience When It Matters Most
All fields at Los Poblanos Open Space typically rely on flood irrigation from the acequia that pulls from the Rio Grande. This year, that water disappeared for a few months. The river was cut off for all of July and August. Albuquerque residents watched a ten-mile stretch run completely dry—something that’s happened only twice before in 40 years, with the last occurrence just recently in 2022.
The causes are complex: minimal snowpack last winter, insufficient reservoir storage, climate change impacts, and complicated legal disputes among communities that depend on the Rio Grande. Future years might improve, but the longer trend is downward. The state’s own report, “Climate Change and New Mexico’s Water Resources: A 50-Year Outlook,” predicts continued decline in precipitation.
Having backup well water powered by solar proved invaluable this season.
What the Harvest Revealed
We’re still analyzing months of data, but early results are fascinating.
Chard yielded more under the solar panels than in full sun. Chile and tomatoes showed the opposite pattern. But yield tells only part of the story.
Timing shifted too. Tomatoes under the panels matured sooner than those in the open field—possibly because slightly cooler temperatures during the hottest months allowed them to keep photosynthesizing. For farmers, earlier harvest can mean better market prices.
We are also eagerly anticipating the results from below ground. The farmers applied the same amount of irrigation water to all plants throughout the growing season. However, the soil sensor data are likely to show a difference in how much of that water remained available to the plants depending on the amount of shade they received from the solar panels.
Why This Project Matters
I believe this project succeeds on multiple levels. We demonstrated that irrigation systems can run completely off-grid using solar power throughout peak summer demand. This creates resilience in two ways: backup power during grid outages, and fixed energy costs for a decade or more.
We need new approaches to food production that don’t add to the environmental and economic challenges farmers already face. This project demonstrates that solar energy can be designed in a way that empowers farmers to produce both renewable energy and local food to our communities in a true win-win.
Agrivoltaics has shown benefits in other locations, but this project offers something unique. It’s located on public land dedicated to regenerative farming and education. Thousands of people pass by each year—touring groups, volunteers, dog walkers, cyclists. This visibility matters.
The project doesn’t just demonstrate new technology. It educates and inspires others to innovate on land stewardship while meeting our needs.
What Comes Next
The formal research phase has ended, but the work continues. Stef and her crew are curious about season extension. After the first cool fall night dipping below 40 F, the tomato and chile plants outside the solar area showed immediate signs of temperature stress and had withered within the next few days, ending their growing season. However, the same crops under the solar panels have continued to produce for three additional weeks.
Next year also brings new opportunities: different crops, more tours and workshops, and continued learning.
Come Visit
You’re welcome to see the site anytime. It’s easily visible from the walking path at Los Poblanos Fields Open Space. If I’m around, I’d be happy to give you a tour and discuss what we’re learning.
This is just one idea for how we can steward land while producing food and energy. But every innovation starts somewhere—and sometimes that somewhere is under the New Mexico sun, where chard grows taller in the shade and tomatoes ripen early, where farmers work comfortably on hot days and water pumps run silently on sunlight.
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