A project from the University of Cordoba proves that photovoltaics and olive trees can coexist and improve the efficiency of the farm.
The implementation of photovoltaic plants on land that has traditionally been used for agriculture has been generating discussion and controversy for years. In fact, protest movements have already arisen in many corners of Andalusia against the extensions of panels that end up with land destined for olive groves. Now, the University of Cordoba has found an alternative.
In a world that increasingly demands clean energy, but also food, the possibility of combining both activities arises so that, instead of competing with each other, they coexist. This is agrivoltaic technology, which explores the possibilities of integrating solar collectors in agricultural plantations, thus generating energy without giving up crop production.
Now, a team from the University of Córdoba has developed a model to test the integration of photovoltaic plants with their solar collectors arranged in rows between the rows of a hedgerow olive plantation. The result is that both activities can not only coexist, but also improve their combined productivity when they do. A ‘win-win’.
The project is the result of the work of five researchers from two research groups: Marta Varo Martínez, Luis Manuel Fernández de Ahumada and Rafael López Luque, from Physics for Renewable Energy and Resources; and Álvaro López Bernal and Francisco Villalobos, from the Soil-Water-Plant Relations group of the María de Maeztu Unit of Excellence in the Department of Agronomy (DAUCO).
More efficient joint production
The team explains that simulation models such as the one developed are very powerful tools in research because they allow testing the effectiveness of a proposal before putting it into practice in the ‘real world’, with the consequent savings in cost and time. In this case, models that simulate oil production in a hedgerow olive plantation have been combined with others that allow predicting how solar collectors, arranged in rows, intercept radiation and convert it into electrical energy.
And if the final objective is to optimize the use of land as much as possible, this model has proven that agrivoltaics meets this objective. The main conclusion of the study is that joint production is more efficient than it would be separately. “In a kind of mutualism, both activities benefit: agriculture, due to the shading produced by solar collectors, which also act as windbreaks and do not compete with the crop for available water; photovoltaics, due to the reduction in temperature in solar collectors as a result of evapotranspiration of the plants, which can result in greater energy production,” they explain.
As explained by the researchers, the developed model allows testing different combinations of height and width of the collectors or spacing between the rows, analysing each configuration to choose the most advantageous final design.
Although in most of the scenarios studied the result is positive, there are many factors that must be taken into account. For example, the study shows that densifying the use of the land, narrowing the rows and increasing the width and height of the collectors, favours a more efficient use of radiation by solar collectors and olive hedges, but the consequent reduction in free space could make some olive grove management operations or the entry of agricultural machinery difficult. The key, as in all symbiosis, is balance.
