Utility scale solar increasingly competes for farmland, and a growing set of state programs now pay a premium for solar designed to keep that land in agricultural production. This is agrivoltaics, or dual use solar, where crops or grazing continue beneath and between elevated panels. For a developer, these programs open a distinct class of opportunity with its own incentive, its own siting rules, and its own application windows.
The programs are run by states rather than utilities, and each defines dual use differently, sets its own capacity cap, and opens and closes enrollment on its own schedule. A developer that does not track them misses both the premium and the projects that only pencil because of it.
Who Runs Dual Use Solar Programs
New Jersey runs one of the first state led programs, the Dual Use Solar Energy Pilot administered by the Board of Public Utilities, which facilitates up to 200 megawatts over three years, pays a base incentive plus an applicant proposed adder for the incremental cost of farming under the array, requires prequalification, and ran its first general application window from January 14 to February 25, 2026, with the Rutgers Agrivoltaics Program providing technical review.
Massachusetts pays a dual use adder under its SMART program for Agricultural Solar Tariff Generation Units, on the order of six to nine cents per kilowatt hour on top of the base rate, with a state capacity goal and a requirement that genuine farming continue under university review. New York, Colorado, and Maryland have added grants, research funding, or incentives, so the map of dual use programs spans many states and changes each year.
The Terms That Decide a Dual Use Solar Bid
A dual use program scores more than price. It requires the project to maintain active agricultural use, sets panel height and spacing so equipment and crops or livestock fit beneath, and often requires an agricultural plan and ongoing monitoring. The incentive structure, a base value plus an adder, and the eligibility window decide whether and how a project can participate.
Because the programs are capped and time bound, the enrollment status and the remaining capacity matter as much as the design, and a project that misses a prequalification step or an application window waits for the next round.
Why Dual Use Solar Tenders Are Easy to Miss
These programs live on state energy agency and agriculture department pages, not the utility platforms a developer watches, and the rules, caps, and windows differ from state to state and revise frequently. The premium that makes a dual use project viable is buried in program orders and incentive schedules.
A developer focused on utility RFPs never sees the state dual use programs, and a developer that learns about a window late misses the prequalification and the application entirely.
How an AI Bid Agent Surfaces Every Dual Use Solar Tender
An AI bid agent monitors the state dual use and agrivoltaics programs together, reads each program and its updates, and extracts the incentive structure, the capacity cap, the siting and agricultural requirements, the prequalification step, and the application window. It scores the fit against the developer's projects and land.
It delivers the dual use opportunities in the same ranked daily digest as the utility and corporate solar demand, so a developer captures the premium programs and never misses an enrollment window.
What the AI Bid Agent Extracts From Each Dual Use Solar Program
- The state program and administering agency, such as the New Jersey Dual Use Pilot or the Massachusetts SMART dual use adder
- The incentive structure, the base value and any applicant proposed or fixed adder
- The capacity cap and the remaining availability in the program
- The agricultural and siting requirements, including panel height, spacing, and the farming plan
- The prequalification step and the application window dates
- The monitoring and reporting the program requires over the life of the project
You can see the full workflow running, the live feed, the fit scoring with written reasoning, and the daily digest, in our AI bid agent demo for utility scale solar PPA RFPs. It is one segment of our renewable energy bid discovery hub, and once you decide to pursue a solicitation our renewable bid response agent reads the full package, builds the requirements matrix, and red teams the draft before submission.