Dr. Andrea Gerlak featured in Energy Policy

Congratulations to Andrea Gerlak and the Agrivoltaics Social Science Team on a new publication out in the journal Energy Policy: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421525004288

Exploring the effects of policy on stakeholder adoption and deployment of agrivoltaics: A case study of Massachusetts

You might be wondering why a bunch of AZ-based folks were conducting this study... Well, Massachusetts offers an important case for understanding how agrivoltaics deployment is happening in the United States, what role policy plays in shaping deployment, and how stakeholders are affected. The Massachusetts agrivoltaics policy is referenced as exemplary because it addresses high capital costs through use of tariff and sets standards for solar siting on farmland (Tajima et al., 2022; Taylor et al., 2023); it is also viewed as inadequate because of prescriptive technical requirements and continuous guideline revision (Brunswick and Marzillier, 2022; Williams et al., 2025). However, no work has used stakeholder-engaged research methods to evaluate the policy's implications on deployment or to understand stakeholder experiences in adoption.

One of the best parts of being in our School is the natural opportunities for collaboration across the sociopolitical and biophysical spaces. Many thanks to Andrea for being such an inclusive scholar and thoughtful mentor to the next generation of learners and doers!