Five stories off the ground at Colorado State University, a highly unlikely garden grows under a long row of rooftop solar panels. It’s late October at 9 am, when the temperature is 30 degrees Fahrenheit and the wind is cutting. Not long before my arrival, researchers had pulled the last frost-intolerant crops out of the substrate underneath the panels, a total of 600 pounds for the season. In their place, cool-season foods like leafy greens—arugula, lettuce, kale, swiss chard—still grow, shaded from the intense sunlight up here.
This is no ordinary green roof, but a sprawling, sensor-laden outdoor laboratory overseen by horticulturalist Jennifer Bousselot. The idea behind rooftop agrivoltaics is
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