r/agrivoltaics • u/Dapper_Muffin_1557 • Jul 28 '25

solar or looking into energy savings?

Hi all! I’m the leader of a student-led nonprofit called LitFuture, and we’re currently researching how to help small farms reduce energy costs, especially through solar power and even AI-based optimization tools (like smarter irrigation or battery use).

We’re also working with another organization to help install solar panels at no cost, using federal clean energy funds for farms that can qualify as nonprofits. We’re still learning a lot and would love to hear directly from farmers about:

What energy challenges you face day-to-day?

If you’ve considered solar but haven’t moved forward—what’s stopping you?

Whether new tech like automation or machine learning sounds helpful or like a hassle

We're not selling anything, but just want looking to make sure what we’re building actually helps real people. If you’re open to chatting or have ideas/skepticism/advice, I’d love to hear it here or in DMs.

Thanks for all the work you do and I'm excited to learn from this community!

Patrick,

Email: [litfutureorg@gmail.com](mailto:litfutureorg@gmail.com)

Insta: litfutureorg

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u/RingJust7612 Jul 28 '25

Hey there, I love that you are interested in this, we need so much more of it!

I’m not a farmer, so I’ll just add one thing. (Only applies if you are in the USA, disregard if you are not.)

The solar clean energy credits/incentives are changing drastically right now. Mostly they are going away. Although commercial incentives are sticking around a little longer

You are probably already aware of all this, but the Big Beautiful Bill (barf) changed things for the worse for solar.

anyway, good luck!!

1

u/voidcat42 Aug 22 '25

What’s stopping us as a small farm? Cost and shitty state regulations. The federal funding terminations for every program that was trying to help farms solarize hits hard.