New agricultural revolution
Combining agriculture and solar energy is easy linguistically. It is enough to join a prefix and a suffix to create agrovoltaics, a concept that promises to take the countryside to another dimension. The tricky part comes when this alliance is transferred to the field. But according to the first experiences, the communion is possible and the result is satisfactory. Agrovoltaics consists of installing photovoltaic panels above arable land to give a dual use to the soil. The idea is to place solar panels in the form of a canopy, so that a vineyard or an avocado plantation extends underneath.
In theory, the technology has many advantages. Apart from the obvious generation of renewable energy, the mobile panels create shade in times of excessive radiation, reduce water evaporation and protect crops from frost or heavy rain. The quality and quantity of the fruit increases, so the farmer gets a higher income from the harvests. The energy produced by the panels allows producers to reduce costs and achieve self-sufficiency, thanks to the creation of charging points to connect the cold rooms where the crops are stored. Renewables grow and the farmer continues to farm the land, guaranteeing his livelihood and reducing food dependence on the outside world.
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The Fraunhofer Institute ISE, which is based in Freiburg (Germany), has 1,400 professionals dedicated to renewable energy research, with a special focus on solar energy. They published a study two years ago showing the results of an agrovoltaic project in Baden-Württemberg (southern Germany). The efficiency of land use in a potato plantation with solar panel canopies reached 186%. In other words, soil yields are almost doubling without leaving the farmer, the ultimate key player, out in the cold.
Pilot project in Aranda de Duero
In Spain, steps are already being taken in the development of this technology. Powerful Tree, a Vitoria-based startup dedicated to the research and implementation of agrovoltaic energy, has teamed up with Repsol to launch a pilot project in vineyards at the San Gabriel School of Oenology in Aranda del Duero (Burgos). It consists of studying changing variables, such as solar radiation or rainfall, and fixed variables, such as soil characteristics, and developing models to replicate this technology at other latitudes and in other crops. According to Inmanol Olaskoaga, CEO of Powerful Tree, fruit trees such as figs or apricots, or tropical species such as mango or papaya – crops that bear fruit for which a high price is obtained – are the ones that benefit most from regulating the amount of sunlight received.
Olaskoaga states that “the revolution has not yet taken place in the field compared to the industrial world”. This engineer is referring in part to this new technology and the sophistication of the jobs it can trigger. In the case of vineyards, winemakers work with engineers, data experts and mathematicians to decide, based on temperature measurements or plant transpiration, when and for how long the panels need to be lowered to create shade at the bottom, where the clusters are located, or rotated to receive full radiation. The operation of the installed panels is the same as that of any photovoltaic park.
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Alberto Tobes is the Director of Experimentation at the Ribera del Duero Regulatory Council. This agronomist engineer finds it positive to give shade to the vineyards some days of the year due to “the strange summers we are having, with such high temperatures”. Torbes explains that the plant’s metabolism stops when the heat is extreme, which causes the grapes to ripen more slowly. Torbes also points out the advantage of protecting the vines when it freezes. “It’s a few tenths of a second difference that condemns you or saves you,” he says. The Ribera del Duero expert highlights the added value that these technologies bring to wineries because “being energetically self-sufficient is positive for selling more”.
This incipient technology has the approval of Jacobo Feijóo, from the Unión de Pequeños Agricultores y Ganaderos (UPA). “It’s worth giving it a chance and testing it. There is a real possibility of creating synergies in the countryside,” says this forestry engineer. In addition, the implementation of agrovoltaics involves automation processes that will require experts in data collection or sensor technology. “The rural world urgently needs to attract talent,” says Feijóo. “We have to exploit that need,” adds the UPA expert.
Olaskoaga adds that the generation of qualified jobs with good conditions will contribute not only to fix the population in the rural environment but also to make it attractive for new profiles. Decisions in the field are made based on the measurement of sensors installed on the plots. Artificial intelligence, over time, does the rest. Information is gathered so that fewer and fewer pilot tests are needed. The goal is to develop a model that allows replicating what has been successfully experienced in Aranda del Duero to other places with different weather conditions, such as Jumilla (Murcia), to give an example. The algorithm learns, shall we say.
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The pilot initiative with the San Gabriel school will have a vocational training degree from next year so that future experts in agrovoltaics will come out of its classrooms with the aim of “giving opportunities to the rural world”, says Olaskoaga. Workers in charge of the assembly, commissioning and maintenance of agrovoltaics will be trained. The field is growing upwards.
Source: https://elpais.com/sociedad/repensemos/2022-11-21/la-nueva-revolucion-agricola.html
