Image: Hugh Kenny, PEC
Virginia agrivoltaics project, the Community Farm at Roundabout Meadows installed 42 solar panels above working crop rows, and the pilot has since been named a co-recipient of the Solar Farm of the Year award. The project launched in October 2025, and its solar garden occupies only a quarter-acre corner of the eight-acre site. Run by a land conservation organisation in the Virginia Piedmont, the farm shows that food production and clean electricity can share the same ground. That small footprint produces more electricity than the farm uses, with panels high enough for crops to grow beneath them in raised planter boxes.
The farm shares the award with Sandbox Solar’s vitivoltaics project in Colorado, which places a solar canopy over grapevines, according to The Piedmont Environmental Council. Pitsiokos said in the announcement that solar energy and agriculture do not have to be at odds. The award is one of the annual North American Agrivoltaics Awards, presented by Solar Farm Summit. It described the Virginia pilot as the state’s first crop-farming agrivoltaics project and an outstanding example of a community-oriented solar farm. In his words, the panels do not displace food production, and their shade helps the farm grow kale, lettuce, beets, broccoli, garlic and more. He added that cutting the farm’s electricity bill to zero was a welcome bonus.
