Photo: Chaiel Schaffel
SHREWSBURY, Mass. (WBZNewsRadio) — On a breezy hilltop in Shrewsbury, a twelve-acre solar array faces the sun.
The grass is neatly trimmed. But instead of the roar of gas lawnmowers and weedwhackers, the only thing that can be heard is the gentle rustle of a flock of sheep, and the constant chirping of millions of crickets.
The silence is intentional, and part of Daniel Finnegan’s business model. Finnegan runs the Mansfield-based livestock company Solar Shepherd. The operation rents flocks of sheep to solar arrays like the one owned by the Shrewsbury Electric and Cable Operations (SELCO) power company all across Massachusetts, and it says the sheep significantly cut down on carbon emissions.
Started in 2018, Solar Shepherd has grown to a total of about 150 sheep on a dozen different sites. The idea came to Dan in the middle of a land crunch, when he was trying to find affordable grazing land for his flock of sheep:
“I happened upon a solar array. It had beautiful vegetation, a nice chain link fence all around it, and I thought, ‘Well why are we mowing these things? My animals are perfect for this!’” Finnegan said.
Finnegan said the fossil fuel savings achieved by using sheep instead of a typical eight-person landscaping team using gas-powered gear can build up over time. Most weedwhackers and lawnmowers use a relatively dirty two-stroke motor. He calculated that just grazing his sheep on the SELCO array for this summer alone would be the equivalent of pulling a mid-size sedan off the road for 352,000 miles.
All things considered, sheep to appear to be tailor-made for grazing around solar arrays. They’re allergic to copper, which keeps them away from gnawing on the wiring. They’re just the right height, and not adventurous enough to jump on the equipment.
“They don’t climb, they don’t crawl on the panels, they don’t leave any hoofmarks anywhere, and they don’t have any interest in the wiring whatsoever,” Finnegan said.
There have been some challenges. For one, sheep drink about a gallon of water per day, and Solar Shepherd needs to make sure there’s a month’s supply of water at its grazing sites at all times.
Finnegan said he uses a rotational grazing strategy, which moves the sheep from one area to the next around the solar array all season, making sure all the grass is kept in check.
SELCO, WinWaste Innovations (until recently, Wheelabrator) and Solar Shepherd are collaborating on the site. In some ways, the Shrewsbury site is ideal for Solar Shepherd’s ideology. WinWaste burns neighborhood garbage instead of coal or gas to create electricity, and SELCO is trying to reduce emissions as a power company, in part with its solar array.
Finnegan says Solar Shepherd is growing, and the idea is catching on. Pretty soon, he said people might see sheep under power lines, on highway medians, and even at office parks.
“There are smarter ways that we can use land. And this is one of them. We’re producing food, fiber and energy all from the same acre of land. We can do that elsewhere,” he said.
A meet-and-greet with the three partners and the sheep that graze the array is set for August 18 at SELCO’s headquarters in Shrewsbury.
WBZ’s Chaiel Schaffel (@CschaffelWBZ) reports:
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