Conservoltaics – Solar Fields for Biodiversity

The idea that the land under solar panels is wasted or not doing anything is an anthropocentric notion that ignores the living community of soil and the critters that can thrive on it when you stop pounding farmland with heavy machinery and chemicals.
There is a rapidly growing literature on how ecosystems evolve under and around solar sites, showing that solar can be a valuable adjunct to repairing and restoring biodiversity.

EcoNews:

Solar farms have often been treated like a threat to the countryside. The image is easy to picture: rows of dark panels, hot ground underneath, and a landscape that seems too quiet for birds, insects, and the small dramas of rural life.

Fresh evidence from Spain suggests that picture is, at least in some cases, incomplete. In several solar parks studied in 2025, researchers found more bird species inside the fenced solar sites than in nearby intensively farmed fields, raising a sharper question for the energy debate.What if the panels are not the whole story, but the way the land is managed beneath them is?

The clearest numbers come from three Spanish provinces. At Minglanilla, in Cuenca, researchers counted 32 bird species inside the solar plant and 19 in the nearby control area. At Revilla Vallejera, in Burgos, they found 39 species inside and 34 outside, while Trujillo, in Cáceres, showed 31 inside and 25 outside.

Those counts came from studies by the environmental consultancy EMAT and were highlighted by UNEF, Spain’s solar industry association. The same work also documented birds of special ecological interest, including stone-curlews, little bustards, European rollers, little owls, and lesser kestrels.

The important comparison is not between a solar farm and a pristine forest. In many cases, the land being compared was already used for intensive agriculture, where repeated plowing, herbicides, insecticides, and simplified crops can leave little room for wildlife.

Once a solar park is operating, that rhythm can change. The soil is no longer turned over every season, hunting is usually excluded, and human activity often drops to occasional maintenance visits. That quiet matters.

The first comeback is often vegetation. If grasses and wild plants are allowed to grow, insects follow, and birds come in behind them like neighbors noticing a reopened market.

That is the food chain doing its regular work. UNEF’s report noted that prey such as insects and small mammals can help attract raptors, including eagles, vultures, kites, harriers, falcons, and owls. It is not a fairy tale. It is habitat.

Scientists are starting to use the word “conservoltaics” for this idea. It means combining conservation with photovoltaics, the technology that turns sunlight into electricity.

Austral Ecology:

Habitat conversion is one of the leading threats to biodiversity globally (Fischer & Lindenmayer, 2007). Renewable energy initiatives such as large-scale solar, wind and hydroelectric power installations have recently boomed, requiring large areas of land for power generation. To offset decreasing land available for biodiversity and nature conservation, land sharing (i.e. using the same land for multiple purposes; Fischer et al., 2008) could maximise land value.

Agrivoltaic systems (agriculture + voltaic [solar energy]) are one of the suggested multifunction land uses for renewable energy. In these systems, solar energy and agricultural practices coexist to produce beneficial outcomes for both industries, emerging to better meet the needs for multiple commercial-scale financial returns (Adeh et al., 2019; Dinesh & Pearce, 2016; Dupraz et al., 2011). No such scheme, however, exists for combining solar energy and wildlife conservation in Australia.

Here, we introduce the concept of conservoltaic systems to identify and exploit opportunities to combine solar energy production and biodiversity conservation. Innovative design and management strategies on solar farms could contribute to nature conservation. Solar panels may provide suitable habitat and structural complexity for wildlife, including shelter from predators, perch or nesting structures and shading (Nordberg et al., 2021; Figure 1 and 2), which can be enhanced with appropriate management (e.g. targeted habitat restoration activities). Consequently, a few studies from Europe have identified opportunities to enhance pollinator biodiversity on large-scale solar parks (Blaydes et al., 2021, 2022; Montag et al., 2016).

Argonne National Lab:

The two studied solar sites were planted with native grasses and flowering plants in early 2018. From August 2018 through August 2022, the researchers conducted 358 observational surveys for flowering vegetation and insect communities. They evaluated changes in plant and insect abundance and diversity with each visit.

By the end of the field campaign, the team observed increases for all habitat and biodiversity metrics. There was an increase in native plant species diversity and flower abundance. In addition, the team observed increases in the abundance and diversity of native insect pollinators and agriculturally beneficial insects, which included honeybees, native bees, wasps, hornets, hoverflies, other flies, moths, butterflies and beetles. Flowers and flowering plant species increased as well. Total insect abundance tripled, while native bees showed a 20-fold increase in numbers. The most numerous insect groups observed were beetles, flies and moths.

In an added benefit, the researchers found that pollinators from the solar sites also visited soybean flowers in adjacent crop fields, providing additional pollination services.