Agrivoltaics And The Underdogs Of The Natural World

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Fan favorite Ryan Reynolds is out with a new nature documentary series for National Geographic under the self-explanatory title Underdogs, which promises to expose certain members of the fish, mammal, and insect kingdoms to, well … exposure. It’s biodiversity as only Ryan Reynolds can do it. Of course, the series also provides CleanTechnica with an opportunity to recap the biodiversity benefits emerging from the field of agrivoltaics, so here we go.

Underdogs is executive produced and narrated by Ryan Reynolds, unspooling on Sunday, June 15 at 9/8c on National Geographic, with streaming to follow on June 16 on Disney+ and Hulu (ABC will also simulcast). To get a taste of the action, check out the Underdogs trailer here.

Agrivoltaics & Biodiversity

It’s no secret that the global biosphere is undergoing a biodiversity crisis, and it’s also no secret that solutions are at hand. Most, if not all, of these solutions will not please all of the people all of the time, to put it mildly, but some solutions can please some of the people most of the time, and the field of agrivoltaics is one of them.

Agrivoltaics refers to the combination of solar arrays with agricultural activities, soil management, and biodiversity restoration, or all three. In terms of conserving productive farmland, the agrivoltaic approach is a sharp contrast to the utility-scale solar arrays of the early 2000’s, when solar developers typically cut costs by laying down easy-maintenance beds of gravel or low-lying vegetation under their solar panels (see more rural solar background here).

Solar developers also like to lease farmland because it comes in large parcels and it is relatively flat, treeless, road-accessible, and pre-commercialized. Farmers like agrivoltaics because its provides them with a reliable source of income. Community support can be the sticky wicket, but farmers and developers can build some bridges by emphasizing the biodiversity and conservation benefits.

One recent example is the independent power producer Earthrise Energy. The company’s unique solar energy business model is supported by its acquisition of a fleet of gas peaker plants over the past several years — along with a key asset, their grid connections. With those grid connections in hand, Earthrise is embarking on a series of solar projects incorporating pollinator habitats and other biodiversity elements, skipping right past other power generation projects that have to wait in the notorious “interconnection queue.”

Urban Agrivoltaics And Anti-Desertification, Too

The agrivoltaics field began to surface on the CleanTechnica radar just a few years ago, around 2017, when researchers began accumulating evidence that some crops can thrive within solar arrays despite the shade cast by the panels. Researchers also began assessing the water and soil conservation benefits of solar shading.

Since then, the agrivoltaics business has expanded in many different directions, as solar manufacturers and developers collaborate on new racking systems and layouts tailored to balance optimal solar energy harvesting conditions with crop yields. New opportunities for roving agriculturalists, particularly sheepherders and beekeepers, are also part of the agrivoltaics picture.

Community gardens have also become part of the movement. In one particularly interesting example, the Detroit Solar Neighborhoods initiative has been soliciting community input to design local solar arrays that incorporate agrivoltaics with urban farming.

In one particularly interesting development with implications for the global agrivoltaics industry, solar arrays have also emerged as an anti-desertification strategy. In China, for example, part of the Kubuqi Desert of Inner Mongolia is hosting a series of massive, gigawatt-scale solar arrays to be completed by 2030. Back in 2017, NASA reported on the project, noting that developers were aiming to help stop the march of desertification while generating clean power, too.

Agrivoltaics plays a featured role in the latest stage of the project. JA Solar, which is supplying its solar modules, notes that the developer plans to populate the ground under the modules with new plantings to “help build a micro-ecosystem and combat desertification.”

Agrivoltaics And Foraging … And Underdogs

Another interesting branch of the agrivoltaics field involves foraging, which refers to people who go out and find food growing naturally, in nature. Up in Maine, the Penobscot Bay Pilot has the scoop on a new 10-acre, 4.2-megawatt agrivoltaics project located on privately owned land used for cultivating wild blueberries.

“Researchers, which will include the University of Maine Cooperative Extension, intend to identify best practices in agrivoltaic construction and operation,” explains the Pilot.

The foraging angle applies to non-humans, too, so let’s wind up by circling back around to that Ryan Reynolds project.

“Getting to work with National Geographic on UNDERDOGS was a dream come true — mostly because I can finally watch a project of ours with my children. Technically, they saw ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ but I don’t think they absorbed much while covering their eyes and ears and screaming for two hours,” Reynolds explained in a press statement.

“Each episode of the five-part series showcases a different aspect of these underdogs’ bizarre mating strategies, surprising superpowers, deception, dubious parenting skills and gross-out behaviors,” Disney adds.

For those of you unfamiliar with the Reynolds brand, one episode features “a huge cavern that glows brighter than a bachelor pad under a black light thanks to the glowing butts of millions of mucus-coated grubs,” which pretty much says it all in a nutshell.

That particular scene happens to be among the first-ever footage shown throughout the series. Music plays a featured role as well. Green Day followers may recognize the theme song, and fans of Shrek and The Martian may also hear some familiar refrains in the musical scoring of composer Harry Gregson-Williams throughout the series (also available in audio format as the “Underdogs (Original Series Soundtrack)” from Hollywood Records.

Here’s the coming lineup:

• “Superzeroes” on June 15: Ryan Reynolds assembles a team of “Superzeroes,” apparently pathetic animals with unexpectedly awesome superpowers.
• “Terrible Parents” follows on June 15: Ryan Reynolds reveals some highly questionable parenting strategies from the animal kingdom’s worst parents, the underdogs.
• “Sexy Beasts” on June 22: Forget the birds and the bees, Ryan reveals the steps to finding “the one,” underdog-style.
• “The Unusual Suspects” follows on June 22: Ryan Reynolds puts the spotlight on the underdogs who get ahead by sneaky tactics.
• “Total Grossout” on June 29: Ryan gives his unique take on the animals who use gross-out tactics to achieve their goals, from defending their home to finding a mate and winning at the game of life.

Underdogs is produced by Wildstar, a Fremantle company, in partnership with Maximum Effort for National Geographic.

Image (screenshot): Biodiversity is one of the benefits of agrivoltaics, and biodiversity is displayed in all of its weirdness in the new Ryan Reynolds nature documentary series Underdogs (courtesy of National Geographic via YouTube).