Agrophotovoltaics - Fraunhofer Reports Combining Farming With Solar 186% More Efficient In Summer Of 2018
For many people, solar power is seen as a threat to farming communities. That’s because they believe farmers must choose between raising crops or livestock and installing solar panels on their land. The Fraunhofer Institute has been conducting experiments in what it calls agrophotovoltaics for two years near Lake Constance, Germany. In the first year, it found the combination of solar and agriculture made the land 160% more productive than if it had been devoted exclusively to one or the other.
The Lake Constance farm mounts its solar panels 5 meters above the ground, leaving room for livestock and plants to grow and conventional farm equipment to operate beneath them. In comparison to open fields in the area, solar irradiation beneath the panels was about 30% less, the air temperature was identical, but soil temperatures in the spring and fall were lower.
So it seems with slightly different design combined with hotter climates, solar could well mean double benefits.
See cleantechnica.com/2019/04/12/f…
#agrophotovoltaics #solar #farming
source https://squeet.me/display/962c3e10-365c-b1c4-6acb-1f5761048164
The Lake Constance farm mounts its solar panels 5 meters above the ground, leaving room for livestock and plants to grow and conventional farm equipment to operate beneath them. In comparison to open fields in the area, solar irradiation beneath the panels was about 30% less, the air temperature was identical, but soil temperatures in the spring and fall were lower.
So it seems with slightly different design combined with hotter climates, solar could well mean double benefits.
See cleantechnica.com/2019/04/12/f…
#agrophotovoltaics #solar #farming
source https://squeet.me/display/962c3e10-365c-b1c4-6acb-1f5761048164
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