Spark Sessions: Agrivoltaics

Each month we will host a guest to do a deep dive into one element of renewable energy for the KidWind network. Organizers, educators, and students are all invited to join. This month, Jordan Macknick and the InSPIRE team at NREL will be presenting on Agrivoltaics! You can learn more about their work here.

About our speaker! Jordan Macknick – Principal Investigator: InSPIRE, Lead Energy-Water-Land Analyst
Jordan Macknick is a Distinguished Member of the Research Staff and the Lead Energy-Water-Land Analyst for the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). Over the past 15 years at NREL, his research has addressed the environmental impacts of energy technologies, while seeking opportunities for energy, economic, and ecological synergies. Since 2015, he has served as the Principal Investigator of the InSPIRE (Innovative Solar Practices Integrated with Rural Economies and Ecosystems) project, the United States’ largest, longest-running, and most comprehensive agrivoltaics research project, with 24 active agrivoltaic field sites located across the country. He serves as the Co-Chair of the International Energy Agency’s Photovoltaic Power Systems Programme’s Agrivoltaics Action Group, helping to unify agrivoltaics research across countries. In 2024 he chaired and hosted at NREL the Agrivoltaics World Conference 2024, the world’s largest agrivoltaics research conference. Beyond work in the agrivoltaics space, he also serves as the Topic Area Lead for Data, Modeling, and Analysis for the National Alliance for Water Innovation (NAWI), a U.S. Department of Energy initiative addressing innovative water treatment technologies and solutions for distributed applications and communities.