Survey finds 85.8% of Canadians support agrivoltaics

Canadian researchers conducted the first nationwide survey on public attitudes toward agrivoltaics, finding strong support across provinces with 85.8% of respondents in favor, although preferences varied by configuration. Opposition mainly stemmed from resistance to change, aesthetic concerns, and lack of awareness, highlighting the need for public education and updated policy frameworks to enable wider adoption.

February 25, 2026 Lior Kahana

Image: pv magazine

From pv magazine Global

Researchers at Western University in Canada have conducted a nationwide survey to investigate community attitudes toward agrivoltaics.

“In this research, we conducted one of the first nationwide assessments of public attitudes toward agrivoltaics in Canada, examining economic, environmental, and social dimensions of renewable energy acceptance,” said corresponding author Uzair Jamil to pv magazine. “The findings suggest strong public backing for agrivoltaics across Canada.”

The survey focused on various agrivoltaics topologies, identified provincial variations in acceptance levels, and analyzed key reasons for public opposition. According to the team, it is the first study determine if the Canadian community favors a specific configuration.

Jamil explained that among the reasons for opposition, the team identified resistance to change, aesthetics, and lack of awareness as the main ones. “Public education can address misinformation and enhance informed acceptance,” he said. “Although the findings suggest strong public backing, current regulatory and policy frameworks will need to evolve to enable broader deployment and allow the country to fully realize the technology’s economic and environmental potential.”

The survey was distributed online to adults aged 18 and older from all 10 Canadian provinces and 3 Northern territories. It was conducted in December 2023, yielding a final respondent list that included 1,595 people. Participants were shown images of five distinct agrivoltaics configurations and asked whether they supported each.

Namely, the five configurations were a conventional solar farm with grazing animals; raised solar panels to shade farm workers; vertical or single-axis tracking agrivoltaics that enable conventional farm equipment; agrivoltaics built into greenhouse roofs to power them; and agrivoltaics over perennial crops and trees. In addition to the quantitative responses, open-ended comments were analyzed thematically to identify underlying reasons for opposition or hesitation.

According to the results, 85.8% of respondents support agrivoltaics, though preferences differed by configuration and province. Stilt-mounted agrivoltaics received an approval rating of 92.6%, while greenhouse agrivoltaics received 86.5%, and solar grazing achieved 85%. Tracking systems with conventional farm equipment received an approval rating of 84.4% across Canada, while agrivoltaics over perennial crops and trees scored the lowest with 80.4%.

As for provinces, Nova Scotia leads with the highest support at 95.6%, followed by Manitoba at 93%, British Columbia at 92.9%, and Prince Edward Island at 92.5%. Quebec had a support rate of 91.1%, Ontario 91%, Saskatchewan 90%, and Alberta 89.4%. New Brunswick had 87.6%, Newfoundland and Labrador had 82.9%, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut had 70%, and Yukon registered the lowest level at 53.3%.

“The ranking of concerns leading to opposition to agrivoltaics reveals a variety of factors, with personal opinions and resistance to change emerging as the most significant, cited by 67 participants,” said the team. “Aesthetic and land use concerns, as well as a lack of knowledge or misunderstandings about agrivoltaic systems, were both cited by 62 participants, while Animal welfare and health concerns were raised by 54 of the respondents, and environmental and sustainability concerns were identified by 45.”

Other notable concerns included the impact on farming or crops, with 37 mentions; health and safety risks, with 21 mentions; technical and practical issues related to system implementation, with 10 mentions; and economic concerns, which were the least cited, at just 6 mentions.

“The results of the survey was somewhat unexpected, because as agrivoltaics is literally sprouting up everywhere in the US – because it simply makes economic sense – Canada appears to be blocking it with antiquated regulations,” research co-author, Joshua M. Pearce, told pv magazine. “In Ontario there is essentially a ban on putting solar on farmland – despite literally hundreds of experiments and demonstrations all over the world including in my own lab in London Ontario showing we could increase crop production for a wide range of food crops.”

“The few Canadians that did not support agrivoltaic development often were not completely aware of the technology and its attributes,” he went on to say. “There is a preponderance of studies that show agrivoltaics will increase agricultural yields. This is non-intuitive but true – and even more so when dealing with temperature extremes from climate destabilization.”

The survey’s results were presented in “Social acceptance of agrivoltaics in Canada: Insights on public perceptions across technologies and provinces from a nationwide survey,” published in the Journal of Rural Studies.

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