Enel Green Power introduces agrophotovoltaics research projects in southerly Europe

• Enel Green Power has started a brand-new programme to explore just how to effectively integrate cultivatable and also pastoral farming tasks together with large-scale solar PV projects.

The collaborative effort will certainly see the Enel subsidiary coordinate with universities and also research organizations, engineering companies, non-profits as well as startups to execute tests at nine pilot projects in Spain, Greece as well as Italy.

The goal is to determine farming activities that can coexist with solar parks without needing to considerably customize plant designs, meaning project costs can be consisted of.

According to Enel Green Power, it will be needed to develop a monitoring model for both the activities tied to the PV plant's operation as well as maintenance and those related to farming-- all without modifying the project format, inhabiting land underneath modules as well as picking plants that do not expand past a details height.

"These experiments will generate a big amount of information that will certainly be put together in an atlas to sustain future choices, enabling new plants to pick the most effective farming remedies and relevant service versions based on the solar technology, the local environment as well as the evaluations of the social, economic and ecological context," said Miriam Di Blasi, head of environment and also influences reduction technology at Enel Green Power.

Tests are already underway at the demo projects, which lie at greenfield areas that were not formerly used for agriculture in addition to websites of decommissioned power plants that are being repurposed.

At the Pezouliotika PV park in Greece, the farming of fragrant herbs, blossoms and blends of plants efficient in attracting cross-pollinating varieties will be tested, while nests will be set up to boost the environment of bird varieties. A variety of crops will certainly be planted at the test websites in Spain, as well as herbs, coriander, lavender and flowers to draw in pollinators. In Italy, one of both pilot projects, situated at the Montalto di Castro thermoelectric plant that is being deactivated, will include bee swarms and also potentially rabbits.

An additional agrophotovoltaics research study project, introduced last year by Fraunhofer ISE, is discovering the possibility for deploying solar parks on agricultural land in Germany to protect apple trees from hailstorm and excessive sunshine.