Agrivoltaic

Agrivoltaics, in which green energy marries agriculture, is intended to be an opportunity to promote the possible integration of photovoltaic technology and agricultural production in general.

Two often distant systems that now need to be thought of and designed together.

The combination of agriculture and photovoltaic systems can bring benefits for the land and the environment, aiming at the production of renewable energy as well as enabling improvements in agricultural crops, local climate regulation and water conservation. As for installation technologies, there are many possibilities, but the aim is to favour solar tracking mounting structures with a height that allows the passage of agricultural vehicles, without compromising the natural development of plants, as well as being effectively spaced according to appropriate optimisation.

The National Recovery and Resilience Plan envisages support for the agri-voltaic sector by allocating €1.1 billion in resources by 2026, with the aim of spreading medium- and large-scale agri-voltaic plants (the aim is to install 1.04 GWp of photovoltaic plants), thereby hoping for a reduction of 0.8 million tonnes of CO2.

Waiting for an imminent government regulation, we report the general lines of the investment measure:

• implementation of agri-voltaics without compromising the use of land dedicated to agriculture but ensuring a substantial contribution to the environmental and economic sustainability of the companies involved;
• monitoring, data collection on both the production of the photovoltaic systems and the existing agricultural activity, with particular attention and evaluation of the local microclimate, water saving, soil fertility recovery and productivity of the underlying crop systems.