http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_15043020 Grasses may fill in beneath growing number of solar panels
By Mark Jaffe
The Denver PostPosted: 05/08/2010 01:00:00 AM MDT
The bare ground beneath solar panels near Boulder has been planted with grasses and mulched in a test to soften the appearance, restore native habitat and protect soil from erosion. (Reza A. Marvashti, The Denver Post)
The land beneath an 8-acre solar array near Boulder is bare, but by summer's end it may be covered with wild grasses — offering a way to soften the environmental impacts of large-scale solar farms across the West.
"These facilities can take up a lot of land and tend to scrape the ground clean," said Brenda Beatty, a senior biologist at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
With at least 26 large-scale solar projects under development in the West — with the largest proposals covering as much as 6,000 acres — there is growing concern among some biologists and environmentalists.
...
As part of a three-year study by Beatty, 48 test plots have been planted under the solar panels at the Boulder array — which supplies 1 megawatt of power to NREL's National Wind Technology Center. The facility is operated by SunEdison, a subsidiary of MEMC Electronic Materials Inc.
...