UNION GROVE, Wis. — As energy costs go up, the Mighty Grand Dairy in Kenosha County turned to solar panels to power its operations.

The farm’s owner, Dave Daniels, recently dedicated a plot of land to bi-facial solar panels. This lets the farm continue collecting energy, whether it’s a cloudy or snowy day.

“It’s gonna use 80-85% of what our electrical needs and hopefully they will get more efficient and maybe we will even increase our efficiency so that we produce more electricity on the solar side of things,” Daniels said.

The environment was also an important consideration for Daniels.

“When we look at the United States trying to become less energy dependent on fossil fuels, that’s some of the reasoning of why we did this also so this will allow us to tell our cheese company that we sell our milk that we are trying to be carbon neutral in the future,” said Daniels.

He also sees this as an investment. The panels have a 25 year warranty but Daniels believes they will be able to pay them off in about half that time.

“We also use electricity for grain bins, for lighting, so all of those things if we can use a different source of energy, it will be beneficial for us to take off those expense off our balance sheet,” Daniels said.

As Daniels looked at his cows, it reminded him of the service that he is providing to the country.

“We are producing milk that’s shipped all over the United States and the fact is 95% of our milk in Wisconsin is exported out of state so we really produce milk for America,” Daniels said.

Daniels said solar power gives him a more efficient way to power his farm to help Wisconsin keep its title of America’s Dairyland.