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FEATURED PROJECT

Flower Power

Building ‘ecovoltaic’ solar parks that restore ecosystems and native pollinators

Planting native vegetation under and around solar arrays can provide critical habitat for animals that need a place to call home. When that habitat includes native wildflowers, pollinator species like bees, birds, and butterflies can thrive. These ‘ecovoltaic’ solar parks offer a two-fold solution to ecological challenges: 1) Creating infrastructure for clean energy, and 2) Supporting biodiversity and ecosystems. While ecovoltaic solar parks are a great idea, foundational studies on best practices, benefits, and challenges are still limited. For this project, we are measuring the benefits of ecovoltaic solar parks in the Central Valley, California, and building best practices to support their development globally.

 

protecting our pollinators

Pollinator species are declining globally due to habitat loss, pesticide use, and climate change.

 

The implementation of an ecovoltaic solar park, thus, provides an opportunity to address two stressors at once: habitat loss and climate change. Solar power is a key source of renewable energy that is expanding rapidly in California. As the solar footprint grows, we need to understand how to build infrastructure that supports the clean energy transition, while also protecting native biodiversity. Our research focuses on several plant communities once common in the Central Valley of California, which broadly hosts a wildflower-dominated, low-standing prairie biome. This is critical as over 95% of the California prairie biome has been lost owing to agricultural expansion.

 
 

Our research site

A buzzing solar park

The UC Davis Ecovoltaic Solar Park at the south campus covers 60+ acres. Since the biodiversity and native seed bank were lost, the footprint was predominately occupied by noxious weeds. Conventional vegetation management was focused on preventing panel shading and fuel load by mowing three to four times a year.

For our first study, we planted experimental plots of two native seed mixes: the “Flower Power” and the “Blades of Carbon” seed mixes. Yudi Li, a Ph.D. Candidate in the Energy Graduate Group, curated and established these mixes in plots both outside and within the solar array footprint in late 2021.

We surveyed plants and pollinator behavior, diversity, and health in the growing season of 2022. Our goal was to compare pollinator metrics in the wildflower versus non-wildflower plots, both within and outside of the solar array.

 
 

PhD Candidate and lead author Yudi Li stands in front of one of his “Blades of Carbon” seed mix test plots and uses a bug net to capture pollinator species that are passing through.

One of the control plots at the UC Davis Ecovoltaic Park

One of the “Flower Power” plots at the UC Davis Ecovoltaic Park

Research Questions

 

01

Which treatments support the highest diversity of pollinators?

02

Are there wildflower species that are the most attractive for pollinators?

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A floral attraction

Pollinators have preferences — Native pollinators, like sweat bees and checkered-skipper butterflies, were drawn to the wildflowers planted by scientists on the UC Davis Ecovoltaic Solar Park. Our data suggest growing native flowers can attract five times more pollinators than leaving a solar site to the weeds. These findings could offer a starting point for developers looking to design ecovoltaic solar parks, project sites that generate energy while supporting native habitat.

 

Pollinator abundance by treatment

UC Davis Solar Farm Pollinator Abundance (Summer 2022)

During the summer, pollinator abundance was five times higher in the “Flower Power” solar array plots planted with wildflowers versus the non-planted, “Control” solar arrays, highlighting the power of ecological restoration for conservation.

 
 

media coverage

The Flower Power Project has been featured in the New York Times

The 2024 article highlights solar parks that are incorporating native wildflower meadows, prairies, and other habitat-friendly features to help pollinators like bees and butterflies thrive. The article argues that while this approach addresses both climate change and biodiversity loss, efforts to make these solar projects wildlife-friendly have been low across the U.S. so far.

Special thanks to our project collaborators


  • Bohart Museum of UC-Davis


  • Argonne National Laboratory

Why this work matters


Redefining the possibilities of ecological restoration

This ongoing research seeks to understand the effects of solar park-based ecological restoration on the enhancement of biodiversity, including pollinators. We aim to grow the UC Davis Ecovoltaic Park to support new scientific discoveries about sustainability while providing useful information to solar developers in the Central Valley of California or other regions where lessons learned are applicable.

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