Agrivoltaics

There is enormous potential to develop the agrivoltaics sector in India, as about 60% of the country’s land area is devoted to agriculture. However, the rollout of projects that pair farming with PV cannot proceed until the authorities iron out a number of policy concerns and regulatory issues.

A surge of Italian PV project activity is soon expected if the local authorities get out of the way. With the market, financial and policy settings in place, the market is set to see a return to bustling PV project activity, with regulatory reforms clearing the way forward, reports Sergio Matalucci in Milan.

The Spanish energy company received 110 proposals from 32 countries. Three of the four selected projects are aimed at deploying agrivoltaic solutions.

Rapidly falling prices of solar panels have created an impetus for the construction of solar fields, which are often perceived as competing with crop production.

Insolight has developed a translucent monocrystalline solar panel with a nominal power of 106 W and a power conversion efficiency of 20.1%. The solar cells are covered with protective glass and optical lenses to concentrate and direct sunlight onto them at around 100 times the intensity of standard solar glass.

In a chat with pv magazine at the Key Energy event in Rimini, Roberta Valenziani, of Italian trade body Elettricità Futura, explained the factors preventing Italy’s PV market from having a renaissance. She said the country has Europe’s longest delays and highest costs for obtaining permits for large scale solar.

The 240 kW facility was built with the support of German mounting system provider Next2Sun.

Efforts are being made to come up with a less convoluted approach to planning farm-based solar systems, in the only EU member state which explicitly apportioned funds for agrivoltaics in its post-Covid spending plans.

A new study from researchers at the universities of Lancaster and Reading in the UK has managed to quantify the economic boost provided by the symbiotic relationship between solar farms and honeybee hives.

Spanish company Axial Structural is introducing a new type of tracker for agrivoltaic installations. The product can be adapted to various ground conditions and gradients, with programmable to optimize light and shade for different crops in different climates.