Photo: Leila Navidi | The Minnesota Star Tribune
Sheep are Xcel Energy’s newest workers, keeping plants away from solar panels. “It’s keeping the veg down, pretty much eating anything that’s green on the ground,“ said Luke Molus, Xcel Energy’s operations manager for the Sherco solar site. Sherco is already Minnesota’s largest solar farm, built to help replace the power lost as Xcel’s coal plant next door in Becker closes in phases by 2030. Xcel expects as many as 2,500 sheep to mow its ground cover of pollinator and wildlife friendly plants for months every year.. The solar array will stretch over about 5,000 acres and will generate enough power for roughly 150,000 homes. Most of the land now home to Sherco solar was used for agriculture. Molus said sheep are a “cost competitive” landscaping solution. Betsy, a black-and-white border collie, helped move the sheep between fenced areas and corralled them when they needed to be loaded into a trailer. Ozzy, a white, fluffy Great Pyrenees, stood guard against predators.
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