Stracker Solar
Helping Oregon Farms
A pioneering research project will allow Our Table Cooperative Farm, a leading advocate for sustainable farming practices, to counter the challenges of growing heat-sensitive crops like lettuce during Oregon’s increasingly hot summers by growing them under elevated, moving solar panels. The project will supply nearly all of the farm’s energy needs, as well as provide backup power to keep its farm store and food storage running during natural disasters.
The project is a collaborative effort of Our Table Farm, the Oregon Clean Power Cooperative, and Oregon State University’s College of Agricultural Sciences. It is largely funded by a generous grant from Portland General Electric’s Renewable Development Fund. It will use unique pole-mounted solar panels from Ashland-based Stracker Solar, and battery storage from Sol-Ark. Dynalectric Oregon, an electrical contractor based in Portland, will install the components.
The “Lettuce Shine” project will include six Strackers with 168 solar panels above Our Table’s fields for a total of 75,600 watts of solar power. Stracker‘s innovative design keeps the solar panels pointed directly at the sun all day, maximizing electrical generation while providing moving shade to cool crops underneath. Stracker’s dual-axis solar power system generates 50-70% more solar power than same-sized fixed systems and has a 45-65% lower carbon footprint per unit of energy produced. Headquartered in Ashland, Stracker Solar has been manufacturing state-of-the-art elevated dual-axis solar trackers since 2017.
