Green electricity and innovative agriculture

Something like this could be found more often on farmland in the future. It is not a shelter for livestock, but an agricultural/horticultural photovoltaic installation, allowing a twofold use of space: the roof made of solar modules generates electricity while crops grow underneath. The roof protects more sensitive plants from heat and hail. With additional technology, growth and water consumption can be controlled as well. “We are still in the test phase, but the initial lessons learned have been very positive,” says project leader Dr. Matthias Meier-Grüll from the Jülich Institute of Bio- and Geosciences (IBG-2). The plant is part of the structural change initiative BioökonomieREVIER.

More on crop production and photovoltaics (in German):  go.fzj.de/agri-horti-pv