It’s time for another edition of Tech Briefs, Cardinal News’ weekly collection of items covering the digital and life sciences landscapes — and occasionally, forward-looking energy ideas.
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Virginia takes steps to incorporate solar energy into agricultural production
Gov. Abigail Spanberger, in a ceremonial signing at an Aldie farm last week, shone a light on “agrivoltaics.”
The term, which incorporates solar energy into agricultural production, is now on the commonwealth’s law books. HB 508, sponsored by two Loudoun County Democrats, Del. John McAuliff and Sen. Russet Perry, created a definition for the purposes of small renewable energy projects. The bill, which becomes law on July 1, is part of a slate of clean energy bills that land conservation organization Piedmont Environmental Council championed this year.
The bill’s intention was to define the word as the co-location of small solar energy generation on farmland, in such a way that farming remains prioritized. Such solar plants would generate no more than 150 megawatts without “significantly” displacing farming activity and ensuring farmers’ flexibility “to adapt to market conditions and support operational needs,” the bill’s text reads.
Spanberger and others, including the bill’s sponsors, celebrated the new law on June 17 at the Piedmont Environmental Council’s Community Farm at Roundabout Meadows, site of Virginia’s first crop-based agrivoltaics project, according to a council news release.
The Community Farm’s project features full battery backup, allowing solar and battery power operation during grid outages. Multiple farms and neighboring locations with battery backup could produce and store enough for a “virtual power plant” with the potential to compensate owners for their grid contributions, according to the news release.
Ashish Kapoor, the environmental council’s senior energy and climate advisor, said the farm has not had an electricity bill this year.
“We hope farmers who want to achieve more energy independence will consider integrating solar energy production into their crop production,” he said in the news release.
The Piedmont council worked with the Virginia Farm Bureau to develop the definition, critical in part to avoid poorly developed agrivoltaics projects, according to the release. It is intended to be the foundation for accelerating underutilized small-scale, distributed generation and storage opportunities in Virginia, according to the environmental council.
“We are making clear that the use of agrivoltaics prioritizes agricultural productivity, keeps land in production for the life of the solar array and is part of an existing farm business,” Spanberger said at the signing.
Jefferson Lab Data Center will provide research boon to Virginia Tech, professor says
Officials broke ground this month on a data center at Newport News that will lead to multiple opportunities for Virginia Tech researchers and students.
The Jefferson Lab Data Center will be part of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility, or Jefferson Lab. The data center, when complete, will house its High Performance Data Facility. The energy department had previously selected Virginia Tech and the Southeastern Universities Research Association (SURA) to manage and operate Jefferson Lab as a joint venture, SURATech.
“It’s very hard to find realistic setups for research, especially in the area of high-performance data,” Virginia Tech engineering professor Dimitrios Nikolopoulos said in a university news release. “This is a great opportunity for our faculty and students to do research with real-world data that can have a real impact in support of the Department of Energy’s mission. It has the potential to be a great playground for research.”
The data center, funded in part by $43.3 million from the commonwealth, will be about 30,000 square feet and designed for high-performance computing and data services for scientific research.
Nikolopoulos said, based on conversations with SURA and the Department of Energy, that the High Performance Data Facility should not be confused with the popular notion of a data center, according to the news release. Rather than storing data, the facility will provide an index of all data generated from the Department of Energy’s 17 national laboratories.
“Creating a coherent view of this data — one that allows more researchers to access it, process it and start new projects based on it — has been elusive,” Nikolopoulos said. “The High Performance Data Facility’s goal is not to house all that data, but rather to provide a guide to where that data is and what the data represents in a way that’s accessible and scalable to the entire scientific community of the Department of Energy.”
