260 sheep, two million bees and 75 MW of sunshine: Alberta's solar farm that stayed a farm

North of Airdrie, Alberta, the Sollair Energy Project generates 75 megawatts of solar power — enough for about 23,000 homes — across 480 acres that never stopped being farmland. About 260 sheep graze between the panels, more than two million bees produced roughly 1,000 pounds of honey on site in 2026, and around 400 acres remain available for hay. This is agrivoltaics: using the same land for energy and agriculture at once. The panels sit on trackers adapted so they can be repositioned for farming, and only 20% of the site's soil was disturbed during construction. The project works with Olds College and Red Deer Polytechnic on research, and its practices helped inform agrivoltaics standards later adopted by the Alberta Utilities Commission. 'From the beginning, our vision was to show that solar energy and agriculture don't have to compete for land,' said managing partner Mark Owerko.

SDG 7 · Affordable and clean energy — Mechanism: infrastructure build