{"id":12495,"date":"2025-02-13T22:32:57","date_gmt":"2025-02-14T06:32:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/ecologue\/?p=12495"},"modified":"2025-02-13T22:32:57","modified_gmt":"2025-02-14T06:32:57","slug":"osu-students-expand-agrivoltaics-project-with-rainwater-harvesting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/ecologue\/2025\/02\/13\/osu-students-expand-agrivoltaics-project-with-rainwater-harvesting\/","title":{"rendered":"OSU Students Expand Agrivoltaics Project with Rainwater Harvesting!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

OSU’s agrivoltaics group, part of the Ecological Engineering Student Society’s Club<\/a>, has been working to expand their field of crops around a solar panel mount on SW Campus Way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Agrivoltaics is the use of land for both solar power generation and agriculture.  A plot of land near one of OSU\u2019s solar fields has been serving as the experimental site for students to test the success of gardening with agrivoltaics. <\/p>\n\n\n

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Current plot of land.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The plot of land has recently tripled from about 200 to 600 square feet!  An original 165 gallon water tank will no longer be enough to irrigate all the new crops this coming summer.  The group of 15 students have added three 275 gallon water totes and are hoping to install more solar panel mounts.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the past, students had to manually fill the water tote. \u201cIrrigating the crops throughout the summer was rough because we had to refill our single water barrel by hand.\u201d said Natalie Krempel, Ecological Engineering student. \u201cSince then, we’ve improved the system by expanding it to harvest rainwater off of surrounding solar panels.\u201d  40 feet of gutter now run underneath the solar array panels to collect water during the rainy months.  A drip line from the water totes will be used to irrigate the expanded plot in the summer.  <\/p>\n\n\n

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The new water system.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The group will be growing tomatoes, squash, zucchini, pumpkins, and more to test the success of their new system.  Stay tuned for an update on the club’s results and findings as the harvest season approaches!<\/p>\n\n\n

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Recent working day at the field.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

OSU’s agrivoltaics group, part of the Ecological Engineering Student Society’s Club, has been working to expand their field of crops around a solar panel mount on SW Campus Way. Agrivoltaics is the use of land for both solar power generation and agriculture.  A plot of land near one of OSU\u2019s solar fields has been serving […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13989,"featured_media":12496,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12495","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/ecologue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12495","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/ecologue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/ecologue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/ecologue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13989"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/ecologue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12495"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/ecologue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12495\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12506,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/ecologue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12495\/revisions\/12506"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/ecologue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/ecologue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/ecologue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/ecologue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}