Italian research agency ENEA launches call for innovative agrivoltaics

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Italian research agency ENEA has launched the International Landscape Design Competition for the design of an innovative agrivoltaic project at an agricultural facility owned by technology company NeoruraleHub and located in Cascina Darsena, in the northern Italian province of Pavia.

The agrivoltaic facility is expected to range in capacity from 1 to 3 MW and will have to be designed to comply with landscape requirements and the agricultural practices of NeoruraleHub, which applies a blue economy model to agriculture. According to a definition given by the World Bank, the blue economy is the sustainable use of ocean resources for economic growth, improved livelihoods and jobs while preserving the health of ocean ecosystem.

“For us, agrivoltaics do not mean joining two worlds but creating a new one, where energy is not produced at the expense of either the soil, the landscape, nor agricultural production, but it means a new solution that optimizes the two distinct ones in a logical virtuous,” said Piero Manzoni, founder and CEO of NeoruraleHub.

“Italy can be a living laboratory,” Alessandra Scognamiglio, coordinator of the task force on sustainable agrivoltaics at Italian research agency ENEA, told pv magazine in October. He stressed that Italy has ambitious energy objectives but is constrained by two factors: having the world's highest concentration of UNESCO sites, and globally popular agricultural production.

 

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