Linda Hezel starts clipping herbs, vegetables and produce from the vines on her farm in Kearney, Missouri, early each morning.

The ground-mounted solar array that powers Hezel's home also provides shade as she harvests produce in the extreme heat that hits Missouri each summer.

"It's really bad. I have to get up at first light because by 10 o'clock, stuff wilts the moment you cut it," she said.

The bounty that eventually lands on plates at restaurants in Kansas City is grown in raised beds and shaded by 18 solar panels hoisted more than 8 feet off the ground.

This is Hezel's first growing season experimenting with an emerging farming system called agrivoltaics. The word is a combination of the terms "agriculture" and "photovoltaic" — and it means farming and producing energy on the sam

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