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Sunzaun - Vertical Solar

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Sunzaun is a vertical solar solution that shifts the limits of renewable energy production.

This approach offers applications that conventional systems can't realize.

10/30/2026

DEFINING AGRIVOLTAICS

New York has 33,000 farms on 7 million acres. So how do you build solar there without taking land out of production?

The state's answer: design around the farm, one constraint at a time.

NYSERDA's new $10 million Sun and Soil Program supports agrivoltaic projects that keep land producing food. It builds on earlier demonstration projects, and each one tackled a different practical problem:

→ Panel height tall enough for harvesters
→ Row spacing wide enough for hay balers
→ Fencing that works for pigs and chickens
→ On-farm power for grain processing

That's the right way to think about it. Agrivoltaics isn't one design. It's whatever lets a specific farm keep doing what it does. For a grazing operation, that might be elevated panels. For a hay or row-crop field, it might be narrow vertical rows that leave wide lanes for equipment.

What we appreciate most is the honesty around the program. None of these projects has run for 25 years yet. Agrivoltaic structures cost more upfront than standard ground-mount. And the data from every project will be shared.

That's how this industry earns trust: define agrivoltaics by what happens on the farm, fund the experiments, and publish the results.

Compare that with the federal REAP rule, which draws its line by mounting type. New York is drawing it by whether the land keeps producing.

What constraint would your farm need solved first? 👇

10/29/2026

Farmers get in FREE. 🌾☀️

That's last year's California-Germany Agrivoltaics Conference, and this year's is just two weeks away.

Come get real answers on growing crops and generating solar power on the same land: what it costs, what it can earn, and which systems actually fit your farm.

📅 Thursday, Nov. 12 | 8:30 a.m.–6 p.m.
📍 UC Davis Activities and Recreation Center
✅ Free for farmers
✅ Optional field visit the day before

Tag a farmer who should be there! 👇

🔗 Register: [link in comments]

10/28/2026

The system that makes the most power isn't always the one that makes the most money.

That's the headline finding from a research project at Hof University of Applied Sciences in Germany, comparing three agrivoltaic designs at the same farm site: a conventional south-facing array, a vertically tracking system, and a vertical bifacial east-west system.

The tracking system produced the most energy. But when the researchers ran the numbers against real electricity market prices, the vertical east-west system came out as the most economically attractive.

The reason is timing. Instead of one big midday peak, vertical east-west panels generate more in the morning and afternoon, when power tends to be worth more.

The vertical design had farm-side advantages too: the land stays in agricultural use, it suits grazing, and there are no moving parts in the grazing area. The simulations are now the planning basis for a 1 MWp installation at the site.

Two honest caveats: these are simulations built on real market prices and site weather data, not years of operating results. And the researchers are clear that the right system depends on the site. There's no universal winner.

But the question they raise is one every agrivoltaics planner should be asking: not just how many kilowatt-hours a system produces, but when.

On Sunday, we wrote that bankability is designed in. This is what that looks like with numbers behind it.

10/26/2026

Agrivoltaics has a financing problem, and it's not a technology problem.

At the AgriVoltaics Industry Forum Europe in Bordeaux this month, project finance experts laid out why these projects are getting harder to fund. Interest rates are up. Electricity revenues are harder to predict, with curtailment and negative-price hours eating into cash flows. And banks have to underwrite two businesses at once: the power plant and the farm.

Lenders are looking closely at four things: revenue predictability, clear contractual responsibilities, whether the farming can last, and how the project holds up when things go wrong. Without a long track record to compare against, uncertainty turns into higher rates and tighter terms.

Here's how we see it. Each of those criteria is also a design question.

→ Revenue predictability: When generation stacks up at midday, it lands in the hours most exposed to curtailment and low prices. East-west vertical systems produce more in the morning and evening, when power is typically worth more. That's a trade: somewhat less total annual output than an optimally tilted system, in exchange for output at better hours.

→ Farm viability: A bank is more comfortable when the farming barely has to change. Narrow vertical rows leave the ground open for standard equipment, so the operation keeps running the way it already does.

→ Track record: The fix for "not enough reference projects" is more documented projects. That's why we put so much weight on research partnerships like UC Davis, where both energy and crop performance get measured, not assumed.

The experts' conclusion was that financing terms will improve as performance gets documented. We agree. Bankability isn't just won in the term sheet. It's designed in from the start.

If you finance or develop agrivoltaic projects, what's the biggest question your lenders ask? 👇

10/22/2026

In the 14-state Southwest Power Pool, wind is now the single largest source of electricity: 38.8% of generation through July 2026, up from about a third in 2021.

Much of that wind runs on working farmland. Farmers host turbines, collect lease income, and keep planting and grazing around them. Nobody argues those acres stopped being farms.

Solar is a different story. In SPP, it's still a sliver of the mix. In MISO, the 15-state Midwest market, it's about 7%.

Same farm country. Same need for new power: generation is up 16% in SPP since 2021, and 10% in MISO.

So why has solar had a harder time earning its place on farmland?

Part of the answer is design. A conventional solar field covers the ground. A wind turbine doesn't.

Agrivoltaics closes that gap with systems built around the farm, so the land keeps producing. Vertical systems take that idea about as far as it goes: narrow rows of upright panels that leave the ground between them open for crops, grazing, and full-size equipment.

Wind already showed that energy and agriculture can share the same land. Agrivoltaics is how solar does the same.

What would it take for solar to get the same welcome in farm country that wind has? 👇

10/21/2026

Introducing "Wellness PV" for cows. 🐄☀️

Our friends at PV-Steel Group just wrapped their first summer with an agrivoltaic system, and a drone survey captured something striking:

🌡️ Open field: 50.0°C (122°F) surface temperature
🌡️ Under the solar panels: 35.7°C (96°F)

That's about 26°F cooler in the shade. And yes, they built a cow brush right into the structure.

Their takeaway is one we agree with completely: good agrivoltaics isn't about putting panels on farmland. It's about designing the system around the farm.

Their system is elevated, giving cattle a shady place to cool off. Ours are vertical, with narrow rows that keep the ground open for grazing, tractors, and crops. Different designs, same goal: the farm keeps working, and the sun pulls double duty.

What would you put under (or between) solar panels: cows, sheep, or crops? 👇

10/19/2026

DEFINING AGRIVOLTAICS

Last week, we looked at where the new USDA REAP rule draws its line: ground-mounted solar on certified cropland is out, whether or not the land keeps farming.

Other countries are drawing that line in a different place, and funding what falls on the right side of it.

Czech Republic
The Ministry of the Environment is covering up to 30% of eligible costs for agri-PV systems of 10 kWp or more on registered farmland, battery storage included. The land stays classified as agricultural, and farmers keep their agricultural subsidies. The condition: on vegetable cropland, the land has to keep producing vegetables for the full life of the system, 25 to 30 years.

South Korea
The country's first dedicated agrivoltaics law takes effect in December, with permits of up to 30 years tied to an annual farming requirement. The government has also proposed doubling 2027 funding for factory rooftop solar and agrivoltaics to KRW 1.8 trillion (about $1.3 billion).

Different countries, same principle: the test isn't how a system is mounted. It's whether the land is still being farmed.

In one sense, that's a stricter standard. Stop farming, and you lose eligibility, for decades. But it's also a more workable one. Systems designed around agriculture get a path forward instead of a blanket exclusion.

Protecting farmland and supporting solar on farms aren't opposing goals. A good definition is how you get both.

What should a U.S. definition of agrivoltaics require? 👇

10/16/2026

USDA's new REAP rule takes effect this week. One line in it deserves a closer look from anyone who cares about agrivoltaics.

The rule makes ground-mounted solar on certified cropland ineligible for REAP grants.

The stated goal is to protect productive farmland. That's a goal we share. Farmland should stay farmland.

But look at what the rule actually measures: how a system is mounted, and how the land is classified. Not whether farming continues.

Under that test, a solar field that replaces a crop and a vertical system (or other types of Agrivoltaic systmes) built so tractors, livestock, and crops keep working between the rows are treated the same way.

Compare that with how other policymakers have drawn the line:

→ New Jersey's Dual-Use Solar Act defines dual-use by the continued, simultaneous agricultural use of the land under and around the panels.
→ South Korea's new agrivoltaics law ties permits to an annual farming requirement.

Both start from the same question: is this land still producing food?

That's the lesson for every agency, county, and state writing solar rules right now. Definitions decide outcomes. Define agrivoltaics by mounting type, and you exclude the very systems designed to keep farmland in production. Define it by continued agricultural use, and you protect farmland and farm income at the same time.

USDA is accepting public comments on the rule through November 2. If you farm, research, or build in this space, it's worth weighing in.

How would you define agrivoltaics in policy? 👇

10/14/2026

A campus needs two things to get built: power and water.

For years, the bottleneck was power: interconnection queues, grid capacity, multi-year waits to get energized.

Now water is catching up.

→ About 40% of existing U.S. data centers already sit in areas of high or extreme water stress
→ Data-center moratorium efforts jumped from 8 to 78 in a single year
→ New York paused hyperscale permitting statewide; Minnesota created a water permit just for data centers

A few weeks ago we shared Aquaria, a company that generates water on-site from ambient air. Our new blog takes the idea a step further.

On-site solar can help supply the power. On-site atmospheric water can help supply the water. Neither replaces the grid or the utility on its own. But stack them on the same site and you get campuses that are more self-sufficient on day one, not just faster to permit on one axis.

The next generation of development may be less about finding land with a grid connection, and more about bringing the resources to the site.

Full piece in the comments 👇

10/12/2026

A European company just won a patent for solar strips that slide into an ordinary fence panel in place of privacy slats. Its first French install is a 20-meter section totaling 3.7 kW, and it plans to sell through fence manufacturers and building-supply retailers.

That's small, and we'd say so. The interesting part is the channel it's aiming for: the places fences are already bought.

Cities have very little spare land, but a lot of perimeter. Property lines, loading yards, rail corridors, the edge of every parking lot. A fence has to exist anyway, so the panel carries a second job instead of competing for space.

We've seen that play out in a real urban setting. Bodhi Hot Yoga's Sunzaun system is the first urban vertical bifacial installation in the U.S., offsetting their high energy usage in a way they previously thought wasn't possible with the specs of their property.

The honest tradeoff: a fence-line system won't out-produce a well-tilted array on annual kWh, and it isn't meant to. It makes sense where the boundary is already there and the land is spoken for.

Different fence, same idea: put generation where the space already exists.

Address

384 Bel Marin Keys Boulevard , Suite 230
Novato, CA
94949

Opening Hours

Monday	8am - 4:30pm
Tuesday	8am - 4:30pm
Wednesday	8am - 4:30pm
Thursday	8am - 4:30pm
Friday	8am - 4:30pm

Telephone

+14157070305

Website

http://www.sunzaun.com/, https://linktr.ee/Sunzaun

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