Farming and solar energy set to integrate in Netherlands-based pilot

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Farming and solar power set to combine in Netherlands-based pilot

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Swedish energy company Vattenfall has actually been offered a license to construct a task in the Netherlands that prepares to integrate solar energy with farming, in the current example of how renewables and farming can possibly dovetail with one another. 

In a declaration previously today Annemarie Schouten, Vattenfall’s head of solar advancement for the Netherlands, described how the job would “alternate rows of panels with strips where various crops are grown for organic farming.”

The pilot, referred to as Symbizon, is slated to last 4 years and be found in Almere, to the east of Amsterdam. Funding has actually originated from the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs.

Schouten stated that double-sided photovoltaic panels would be utilized in order to make sure “sufficient light yield.” Such a setup would likewise make it possible for the panels to “catch the reflected light from the soil, the crops and the adjacent rows and use it to produce solar energy.”

While strategies have actually taken an advance, Vattenfall has yet to verify if the job will really advance. A choice on this is anticipated by the end of 2021. If it does get the thumbs-up, building work will begin in 2022. 

A wide variety of stakeholders are set to be included if the plan is completely understood. These consist of independent research study company TNO, which would establish a “solar tracking algorithm” to track energy and crop yields, to name a few things.

The concept of releasing photovoltaic panels on farmland has actually been around for several years. One hair of this is called agrivoltaics, which likewise passes the name of agrophotovoltaics.

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According to Germany’s Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE, agrivoltaics “enables the dual use of land for harvesting agriculture and solar energy.”

The concept behind the idea traces its roots back to the early 1980s and is credited to Adolf Goetzberger, creator of Fraunhofer ISE, and his coworker Armin Zastrow.

According to the Institute, agrivoltaic setups grew from around 5 megawatts in 2012 to roughly 2.9 gigawatts in 2018.

Solar panels can likewise be utilized to assist those operating in farming with their daily activities. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, for example, has actually kept in mind that “solar technologies are becoming a viable option for both large and small-scale farmers.”

In 2020, CNBC’s “Sustainable Energy” reported on how one Zimbabwe based farmer, Cheneso Ndlovu, was utilizing solar tech to assist her grow fruit and vegetables.  

“We do gardening using a solar powered borehole for watering,” she stated.

“We planted tomatoes on a small patch we were watering and we realized it was thriving, so we decided to grow other vegetables,” she included. “We use the water for other domestic needs like washing.”