Joel and Tonje Olsen of Montgomery Sheep Farm in Montgomery County, NC.
Joel Olsen has developed 25 solar facilities over the past 15 years – mainly in North Carolina, a leading solar state.
His proudest project, called the Montgomery Sheep Farm, is where he’s re-writing the book on what a solar farm can be. In fact, it’s a “true” farm – complete with anywhere from 400-600 sheep providing landscaping for a 28-megawatt (DC) solar facility covering 123 acres of the 200-acre farm. This project is also a research station for developing best practices for raising livestock on solar farms.
“A solar facility can be more than just acres of solar panels,” says Olsen. “We are combining solar power with the best elements of agriculture. Around the country, we are seeing more of it … Not enough of it – but more.”
The project has evolved over the years. The site in Montgomery County, N.C., had been a private hunting preserve. From 2013 to 2015, O2 emc (O2), where Olsen was CEO, developed the solar facility at the site, preserving all the farm buildings. The barns, farm lodge, and farm cabin began renovations in 2016, including energy efficiency upgrades made possible by a grant from the Renewable Energy for America Program (REAP).
Offered through the U.S. Department of Agriculture, REAP grants promote energy independence, rural economic growth, and environmental sustainability by making renewable energy systems and energy efficiency improvements more accessible and affordable for rural small businesses and agricultural producers. With the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022, over $2 billion in REAP funding has been allocated through 2031, investing in more projects like the Olsen’s.
REAP funds allowed Olsen to transition the farm lodge to a renewable energy microgrid that helps power farming operations. Also in 2016, Olsen built a new 10,000-square-foot lambing barn, hired a farm manager, and began purchasing sheep to maintain the vegetation of the solar farm.
Olsen’s wife Tonje has long advocated for using sheep to manage landscaping at his solar farms versus the more common practices of spraying chemicals or relying only on traditional mowing.
She started Sun Raised Farms in 2012 to provide vegetative maintenance to solar farm owners by training and using local sheep farmers to graze sheep on their solar farms. They are steady grazers and don’t climb on the panels or damage the equipment.
“Just spraying chemicals to kill the grass seemed to be counter to what solar power is all about,” Olsen says. “Tonje urged us to design our solar facilities not only to accommodate sheep for grazing but also to have our solar facilities eventually become certified as Animal Welfare Approved farms.”
The Olsens’ vision was always to have solar power and agriculture work together at each site that O2 developed. Today, not only do the sheep help maintain the vegetation, but they also contribute to Sun-Raised Foods, which provides lamb salami and cuts to the market. Hint – the lamb salami has won the national “Good Food” Award and the “Our State Magazine Made in NC Food Award”.
In addition to buying lamb salami and cuts from Sun Raised Foods, customers can reserve a Great Pyrenees puppy or a trained adult dog to guard their own sheep, chickens and other livestock from predators like coyotes.
The Olsens also use the Montgomery Sheep Farm to host farm tours and farm-to-table dinner events throughout the year, introducing local lamb dishes and showcasing the clean-energy operation to the local community. Olsen is a tireless advocate of explaining how clean energy and agriculture can be combined.
“I’ve hosted schools, colleges, and community groups. I want to show how solar power and farming can work together,” he says. “Most people come away saying, ‘This makes a lot of sense.’”
Others are starting to take notice. The Montgomery Sheep Farm was recently named the Solar Ranch of the Year in the 2024 North American Agrivoltaics Awards. It also helped spur the formation of the American Solar Grazing Association, which has more than 800 members across 45 states.
The clean-energy aspect of the site is expanding, too. While the 28 MW solar facility sells power to the local utility, the farming operation is powered by a separate solar power microgrid. With the addition of Tesla batteries, the farmhouse, cabin, barns, and other buildings operate off-the-grid about 70 percent of the time.
Olsen is still planning and expanding. The remodeled cabin is now an Airbnb, and there could be similar projects in the future. He’d be happy if others copied his concept.
“I want people to see this model,” he says. “It combines clean energy, sustainability, agriculture, and agritourism. We can expand and explore clean energy in a whole different way.”
Get Involved in the Clean Energy Generation
As the Clean Energy Generation, we’re living during a time of historic climate funding, support, innovation, and clean energy technology. There are ways for each of us to get involved, no matter who we are, where we live, or how much is in our wallets. To hear more stories like the Olsens’, learn more about how you can take action, and meet other passionate Clean Energy Generation members from across the Southeast, we invite you to join the movement. We all deserve a healthier, safer future powered by clean energy, and we have each the power to inspire others by spreading the news.
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The post In North Carolina, Putting the Farm in Solar Farm appeared first on SACE | Southern Alliance for Clean Energy.
Weather Guard Lightning Tech
Australia’s $17B Grid Expansion, Recycling Blades to Steel
Allen covers Suzlon hitting 2 GW in a single Indian state, Nabrawind’s crane-free turbine install in Namibia, Antora’s South Dakota thermal battery, Australia’s $17 billion grid expansion, and Shimizu recycling old turbine blades into steel.
Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly email update on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard’s StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary Barnes’ YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us!
GOOD MORNING.
The wind industry is not just getting bigger.
It is getting smarter.
And today … we have the proof.
Let us start in India.
SUZLON GROUP just crossed a milestone.
Two gigawatts of wind orders … in a single Indian state.
The latest deal … sixty-five turbines at three megawatts each
for a company called SUNSURE ENERGY.
SUNSURE is not a utility.
It is an independent power producer
building round-the-clock clean energy
for data centers … electric vehicles … and heavy industry.
Wind paired with solar and battery storage.
Power that does not stop when the sun goes down.
SUZLON is already building six hundred and sixty-four megawatts
of additional commercial and industrial projects in the same region.
And SUNSURE … backed by PARTNERS GROUP of Switzerland …
has seven gigawatts in development across India
with a target of ten gigawatts by two thousand thirty.
That is not government-led.
That is private capital chasing wind.
Now … across the ocean to Africa.
A Spanish company called NABRAWIND [NAH-brah-wind]
just solved a problem that has plagued remote wind farms for years.
How do you install a turbine
when you cannot get a crane to the site?
Their answer is a system called SKYLIFT.
No heavy-lift cranes. None.
A self-erecting tower combined with a blade installation tool
they call the BLADERUNNER.
They just put up a GOLDWIND six-megawatt turbine
at a wind farm in NAMIBIA.
And here is the part that changes the math.
Traditional crane installation needs calm air.
Six to eight meters per second. Maximum.
NABRAWIND’s system works in fifteen meters per second sustained …
with gusts up to twenty.
That site blows hard. All the time.
Which is exactly why they chose it.
When complete … seven turbines …
two hundred and thirty gigawatt-hours a year.
About six percent of NAMIBIA’s entire electricity demand.
NABRAWIND was acquired by Australia’s FORTESCUE last year
as part of its industrial decarbonization push.
So India is stacking private-sector wind orders.
Africa is installing turbines without cranes.
And in SOUTH DAKOTA …
they are storing the wind itself.
A California startup called ANTORA ENERGY
just built a five-gigawatt-hour thermal battery
at an ethanol plant in BIG STONE CITY.
More than two hundred solid carbon blocks.
When the wind blows at night and nobody needs the power …
the blocks absorb cheap electricity and heat up.
When the plant needs energy …
the blocks release heat or generate electricity
through special cells that capture light
from superheated material.
Think of it as a giant toaster oven battery.
Full power expected by October.
The plant’s president put it simply.
Nobody has got a switch for the wind.
It blows when it wants to blow.
Now … down under.
The AUSTRALIAN government just announced
the biggest single expansion of its electricity grid.
Nineteen renewable energy projects.
Seven-point-eight gigawatts of generation.
Seven-point-nine gigawatt-hours of battery storage.
Seventeen billion dollars in private investment.
Nineteen thousand construction jobs.
Power for four million homes.
Among the largest … RWE’s [arr-vay’s] THEODORE wind farm in QUEENSLAND.
One-point-one gigawatts. Up to one hundred and seventy turbines.
Three billion Australian dollars.
RWE … the same company building offshore wind
in England and Denmark …
is now building onshore in AUSTRALIA.
And the AUSTRALIAN government is not stopping.
They just opened the next round of tenders.
Another five gigawatts.
Finally … JAPAN.
Major contractor SHIMIZU [shee-MEE-zoo] CORPORATION
has developed a way to recycle old wind turbine blades.
Not into park benches. Not into landfill.
Into steel.
The blades are cut and crushed into a material
that goes into electric furnaces
to adjust the carbon content of steel …
making it harder and stronger.
JAPAN expects to replace one hundred to two hundred turbines a year
by the two thousand thirties.
That is two to three thousand tonnes of blade waste. Annually.
SHIMIZU has built about twenty percent
of the wind power facilities in JAPAN.
They see this technology as a way to grow
their entire wind energy business.
So … let us step back.
India stacks two gigawatts of private-sector wind orders.
Africa installs turbines in gale-force winds … without a crane.
South Dakota stores surplus wind in superheated carbon blocks.
Australia backs nineteen projects with seventeen billion dollars.
And Japan turns old blades into stronger steel.
From the factory floor to the scrap yard …
from the wind farm to the furnace …
the industry is solving problems
at every stage of a turbine’s life.
And that’s the state of the wind industry for the 25th of May 2026.
Join us for the UPTIME WIND ENERGY PODCAST tomorrow.
We’ve all heard ideas like the one being expressed here, though this one sounds extreme. Jail sentence? Education is exclusively an exercise in pounding in bad habits?
What’s the outcome for students in the very worst of our schools that make no attempt whatsoever to help its pupils learn to think critically? Well, their kids learn to:
- Read and write
- Do math, at least through algebra
- Understand some level of history and geography
- Make friends and get along with others
- Establish independence from the parents
- Gain the qualifications for employment
What’s the alternative? Illiteracy? Social isolation? Child labor? Poverty? Neurotic sloth? Being a burden on society?
Is it a coincidence that the countries with the best educated children are the happiest, sanest and most productive nations on the planet?
If you’re a competent woman working at the highest echelon in the U.S. government, better start packing your bags.
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