The PV review: agrivoltaics takes the stage in 2023
(Source: PV-tech by Will Norman)
In November, the European Commission approved a €1.7 billion (US$1.8 billion) investment scheme to support the development of agrivoltaics in Italy. In total the funding will back just over 1GW of agrivoltaic projects, to be awarded through a bidding process that will build on one of the most active agrivoltaics markets in the world.
This funding came around a month after the EU’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) published findings which said that the bloc could deploy 944GW of agrivoltaics on just 1% of its utilised farmland, assuming an average installation rate of 0.6MW per hectare. The JRC made a point of emphasising that agrivoltaics sits at the crossroads of the EU’s renewable energy and agricultural goals; the centre’s Solar Energy Strategy calls for 720GW of deployed solar by 2030, and its Common Agricultural Policy simultaneously calls for member states to implement agricultural strategies to preserve the agriculture and farming industry.
In conversation with PV Tech Power at the start of this year, chief commercial officer at US solar developer Silicon Ranch Matt Beasley said that: “This industry is going to be responsible for millions of acres of land over the next ten years and we have a responsibility to maintain that land, if not improve it for future generations.”
In the same conversation, he called for the solar industry to realign its perception of land and land use as it relates to solar development, to consider it as a valued resource in the same way as energy output or capacity.
What the JRC research shows, along with the subsequent funding allocation in Italy, is a serious consideration of agrivoltaics’ potential from legislators in Europe. Private industry is perhaps less likely than government to take a broad-perspective look at the confluence of solar and farming and the dual-use solution it provides for land.
Speaking of big money, French fossil fuels giant TotalEnergies bought Ombrea, a compatriot agrivoltaics specialist developer in September for an undisclosed sum, and the purchase represents TotalEnergies’ ambition to develop 1.5GW of agrivoltaics.
As with the EU’s publication of the JRC’s research, the significance for agrivoltaics here comes from association; TotalEnergies is one of the largest energy companies in the world and was the number one PV developer in the world over the last year by capacity volume. Its decision to back agrivoltaics and establish an ‘agrivoltaics division’ – as per its announcement – speaks to the place that the technology is taking in the mainstream of the PV industry.
The PV review: agrivoltaics takes the stage in 2023
(Source: PV-tech by Will Norman)
In November, the European Commission approved a €1.7 billion (US$1.8 billion) investment scheme to support the development of agrivoltaics in Italy. In total the funding will back just over 1GW of agrivoltaic projects, to be awarded through a bidding process that will build on one of the most active agrivoltaics markets in the world.
This funding came around a month after the EU’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) published findings which said that the bloc could deploy 944GW of agrivoltaics on just 1% of its utilised farmland, assuming an average installation rate of 0.6MW per hectare. The JRC made a point of emphasising that agrivoltaics sits at the crossroads of the EU’s renewable energy and agricultural goals; the centre’s Solar Energy Strategy calls for 720GW of deployed solar by 2030, and its Common Agricultural Policy simultaneously calls for member states to implement agricultural strategies to preserve the agriculture and farming industry.
In conversation with PV Tech Power at the start of this year, chief commercial officer at US solar developer Silicon Ranch Matt Beasley said that: “This industry is going to be responsible for millions of acres of land over the next ten years and we have a responsibility to maintain that land, if not improve it for future generations.”
In the same conversation, he called for the solar industry to realign its perception of land and land use as it relates to solar development, to consider it as a valued resource in the same way as energy output or capacity.
What the JRC research shows, along with the subsequent funding allocation in Italy, is a serious consideration of agrivoltaics’ potential from legislators in Europe. Private industry is perhaps less likely than government to take a broad-perspective look at the confluence of solar and farming and the dual-use solution it provides for land.
Speaking of big money, French fossil fuels giant TotalEnergies bought Ombrea, a compatriot agrivoltaics specialist developer in September for an undisclosed sum, and the purchase represents TotalEnergies’ ambition to develop 1.5GW of agrivoltaics.
As with the EU’s publication of the JRC’s research, the significance for agrivoltaics here comes from association; TotalEnergies is one of the largest energy companies in the world and was the number one PV developer in the world over the last year by capacity volume. Its decision to back agrivoltaics and establish an ‘agrivoltaics division’ – as per its announcement – speaks to the place that the technology is taking in the mainstream of the PV industry.