Harvesting electricity and fruit

At the test site of the Swiss Competence Centre for Agricultural Research in Conthey (VS), a 165 m2 pilot area above a raspberry plantation was put into operation in 2021. Modules from the Swiss manufacturer Insolight were used. The modules tested consist of semi-transparent modules made of highly efficient silicon in combination with a microlens layer that can regulate the light transmission to the plants or cells. Automatically, the needs of the plants are taken into account and, depending on the time of day and season, the light transmission is adjusted and directed either to the plants or the solar cells to dynamically optimise power generation in real time according to local conditions. The transparency of the Insolight modules over the crops can be regulated between 15% and 70%. The incident light is directed either to the high-performance cells of the modules or to the crops below - depending on whether the sunlight is to be used more for plant growth or more for solar production.
The study will confirm the technical and economic feasibility of the proposed solution and examine the impact of the technology on plant growth.

Die Studie wird die technische und wirtschaftliche Machbarkeit der vorgeschlagenen Lösung bestätigen und die Auswirkungen der Technologie auf das Pflanzenwachstum untersuchen.

Agrivoltaics has a future: researchers at the ZHAW are investigating agronomic, spatial planning, legal and technological aspects and estimate the potential in Switzerland at 10 to 18 gigawatt hours per year. However, it must be implemented where energy production is synergistic with agricultural production. Although in Switzerland the protection of crops by photovoltaic panels can limit the effects of hail and overheating and is therefore positive for agricultural production, there are only a limited number of crops that can be shaded without affecting agricultural production. Studies on win-win implementation methods that benefit both crop growth and energy production to make the synergy economically interesting are certainly still lacking to justify widespread application of these technologies in agricultural crops in Switzerland. Without a win-win situation, standard photovoltaic applications are more relevant than agrivoltaics, at least in Switzerland, where the potential in the built environment is very large (>60,000 gigawatt hours per year). In other countries, the relevant use cases may be quite different from those in Switzerland, as both agricultural production and energy production are highly dependent on local conditions.