News & Advance Features BRL&W at Bedford Solar Farm
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We were recently featured in the News & Advance of Lynchburg, and the Roanoke Times. Check out our interview at the solar farm:
"…The Bedford Solar Farm came online in January 2018. Having the sheep on the land provides all-natural vegetation, which allows the facility to operate more efficiently, John Wagner, the town’s electric department director, said…
The presence of sheep on the farm pairs renewable energy with agriculture, said Liz Akenhead, who has a yearly, renewable contract with O2 emc to bring in her own sheep to help maintain the farm.
“It’s a productive use of the land. Instead of just harvesting solar energy, you can turn it into sheep grazing and promote agricultural use of the land,” she said. Akenhead and her three daughters — Lauryl, 15, Samantha, 12, and Norah, 9, make sure the weeds aren’t growing up through the panels and keep the grass at the correct height…
The Town of Bedford provides public water, not well water, to the sheep, which is kept in the center of the field in buckets. Other than that and the grass, sheep are low maintenance and require very little, Akenhead said.
Akenhead and her three daughters visit the farm just about every day checking on the sheep, their health and the status of the land…"