From pv magazine International
Enel Green Power, the renewable energy unit of multinational energy group Enel, has launched a series of agrivoltaic pilot projects at nine demonstration sites in Europe, including two in Greece, five in Spain, and two in Italy.
“Our initial approach to agrivoltaics is based on the idea of utilizing existing and operational solar parks,” Giovanni Tula, Enel Green Power’s head of sustainability, told pv magazine. “We are trying to understand if different kinds of agricultural activities can be integrated in an efficient way into plants that have been active in the power generation business for several years.”
Its approach is designed to utilize agricultural surfaces that have already been used for the construction of large-scale solar plants, so there is no need to occupy new plots of land.
According to Tula, there is plenty of room for crops between the trackers and the panels. “A conventional solar park does not change the nature of the ground and agriculture is still possible,” he said. “Our goal is to explore the agrivoltaic option in large-scale PV parks or sites in which the energy business remains the most important one.”
This business model, according to Tula, would be completely different from more “conventional” agrivoltaic projects, where the agricultural business dominates and the panels are usually mounted on special structures at a certain height to enable the use of farm equipment beneath them.
To read more, please visit our site pv magazine International
This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.
By submitting this form you agree to pv magazine using your data for the purposes of publishing your comment.
Your personal data will only be disclosed or otherwise transmitted to third parties for the purposes of spam filtering or if this is necessary for technical maintenance of the website. Any other transfer to third parties will not take place unless this is justified on the basis of applicable data protection regulations or if pv magazine is legally obliged to do so.
You may revoke this consent at any time with effect for the future, in which case your personal data will be deleted immediately. Otherwise, your data will be deleted if pv magazine has processed your request or the purpose of data storage is fulfilled.
Further information on data privacy can be found in our Data Protection Policy.