The speakers at the opening session of this year’s Agrivoltaics Industry Forum, organised by Conexio PSE, were agreed on one point above all: agrivoltaics is growing faster than any other solar segment. Around 85 participants travelled to the picturesque Château Gassies near Bordeaux to learn more about how farming and solar power generation can work together. “For me, agrivoltaics is a ray of hope because it brings climate and soil together,” said Jochen Hauff, managing director of the consultancy Think Resiliency. He argued that it supplies electricity for Europe’s reindustrialisation while strengthening farmers, water management and food production, and that it remains on the winning side despite margin pressure and political headwinds.
Philipp Kunze, chair of the Agrivoltaics Task Force at the Global Solar Council (GSC), shares this optimism. Using concrete examples, he showed that agrivoltaics has moved from isolated demonstration projects to an established pillar of the energy transition. “The time has now come to scale up agrivoltaics,” he said. “The need for cooperation between agriculture and photovoltaics is evident not only in hot summers here in France and elsewhere, but also in the fact that land is becoming scarcer.”
Agrivoltaics helps with the cost structure
He also sees policymakers coming on board, citing several examples. Italy, France and Germany are working on common standards, Israel gives agrivoltaics priority in its land-use planning, and India and Japan are rolling out programmes with farmers. “By working with banks and independent engineering consultancies, we are making the segment even safer for investors,” Kunze said.
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In practice, solar canopies are particularly straightforward and cost-efficient to deploy for speciality crops such as fruit, berries and grapes. The structures that would carry the modules are either already in place or need to be built regardless. Leo Vöhringer, a farmer and managing director of Voen Vöhringer, which supplies canopy systems for fruit and berry growing, including solar versions, sees this as a way to ease the cost pressure on growers. “Agrivoltaics is a huge opportunity to help fruit growers with their cost structure. It offers major possibilities when it comes to electricity consumption, electrification and the operation of cold stores,” he said.
Integrating lightweight modules into foil roofing
Because the modules can be built into existing protective structures, no new foundations are needed. Together with researchers at Fraunhofer ISE, Vöhringer developed the Voen E-Crops concept, which integrates lightweight solar modules into existing foil canopies over speciality crops, so no new foundations are needed.
Croatian and Italian associations join on agri-PV rollout
Vöhringer set out a clear principle to make sure farmers benefit most. “We have to keep the ‘agri’ in agrivoltaics first,” he said. “That means strengthening family-run and local production structures, but also creating fair competitive conditions.” In his view, cutting red tape would amplify the effect further.
Tailwinds from Brussels
Antanas Karbauskas of the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Agriculture also highlighted what agrivoltaics can do for farming. “Agrivoltaics can help in many cases,” he said, pointing to the income structure of agricultural businesses. In his view, the benefits go well beyond income: the technology eases water scarcity, replaces bought-in energy on the farm and protects harvests from hail and drought. That, in turn, could bring down the insurance premiums farmers pay.
To make the most of that potential, he called for transparency and fairness. “Farmers should be the owners, not merely service providers, and agricultural use should continue and remain at the centre,” Karbauskas said. After all, farmers can only claim EU agricultural subsidies for land with agrivoltaics if it is still actively farmed.
Clear rules required
He also sees a risk for land prices. “What at least raises certain concerns, which must always be taken into account, is the rise in land prices and lease rates,” Karbauskas said. “Certainly, we mainly receive complaints when land is used for standard solar parks, and less so about agrivoltaics. Even so, agrivoltaics can also push up land prices, not only for the plot in question but also for the surrounding areas. If a farmer pays €300 or €400 to the landowner and the solar developer offers ten times as much, the landowners will of course go with the solar developer.”
Solar for farmers – tech and regulations in focus
He also wants clear rules to stop solar parks with minor modifications being passed off as agrivoltaics. “The dominant form of agrivoltaics in the EU is sheep grazing,” Karbauskas pointed out. “If we compare the value of the energy produced with the value of the sheep, the farmer earns hundreds of times more from the electricity than from the sheep. But if agriculture is supposed to be the main objective, and yet the energy value is hundreds of times higher than the agricultural value on the
Electrify, but fairly
Karbauskas therefore advocates a balanced approach. “Europe needs to be electrified, that is clear and beyond doubt. But it has to be done cleverly and fairly, without too many mistakes,” he said. For him, that means rules that keep farming at the heart of every project.
Dries Acke, deputy chief executive of SolarPower Europe, backed up the case with figures. “Agrivoltaics increases yields in some regions by up to 60 percent, retains up to 30 percent more water in the soil and raises carbon storage by 80 percent,” he said. He also pointed to the effect on temperature. Under the modules, it is up to 6 °C cooler in summer, while in winter, and especially in spring, it is up to 7 °C warmer than the surroundings.
Regulations on the way
On top of that comes the electricity for the farm itself. “It is a win-win-win situation, and we keep making that point,” Acke said. To show what that looks like in practice, SolarPower Europe has compiled a digital map of notable projects and published a handbook covering ten types of agrivoltaics and a range of business models.
Vertical PV and existing solar parks: a case for overbuilding
Acke also presented a policy map showing where individual member states are already well positioned on agrivoltaics and where hurdles remain. The map shows that a good deal has already changed and that the rules for agrivoltaics are improving in a growing number of European countries, even if there is still plenty of catching up to do.
Lowering operating costs with modest support
For the next step, he is pinning his hopes on the farmers of tomorrow. “With a small investment subsidy at the outset, they later reap all the operating-cost benefits,” he said. He wants the Commission to set a framework that builds on this momentum.
Solar Investors Guide #8 – Agri-PV for farmers and investors
Beyond the policy debate, the programme looked at agrivoltaics in practice, with speakers presenting concrete projects and their benefits and challenges. A dedicated panel set out the financing options available and the conditions projects need to meet. The forum closed with a look at the future of agricultural automation, which could become a welcome buyer for the solar power produced in the field. (su)
Anyone who missed the event in Bordeaux can watch all presentations and panel discussions in The smarter E media library
