I’m a UK farmer and analysis of our jobs shows that we farmers are essentially solar harvesters whether it is growing plants for food or employing technology to produce energy. Currently there’s a perception by those (usually with valuable property here in the UK countryside) that it’s either use farmland to grow food =good👍or ‘waste’ this valuable resource by producing electricity through “rip off” get rich schemes by those “determined to wreck our wonderful countryside” =bad👎 We need to move on from this ignorant nonsense and, with smart technology, start integrating all types of energy production with food production so that we can more easily access benefits such as the decarbonisation of agriculture through electrification of farm equipment for example Currently there’s are too many naysayers and too many with vested interests in the status quo holding sway, dragging their feet and stalling the development of this game changing approach.
1. Surely the answer in the first instance is produce electricity where it is needed i.e solar roof top. The infrastrucure for what is described in the video will require massive grid connections and transfer of that energy (massive infrastructure) and a long time scale.... 2.Fruit and some vegetable farms this may work but not broad acre farming.Gps would not work and lets not forget that some of the machinery now is up to 48metres in width... 3.Electrification of agricultural machinery is in its infancy simply because battery tech is probably at least 2 decades away from providing a solution. There is no regen braking, its solid 'grunt' 350kwh, 16hrs a day, you are looking at something that currently weighs 20 tons (battery). We have one machine that is electric,(30% more cost than an ice eqivalent) 18hrs to charge for 2.5 hours use, we dont have a good enough grid connection for anything faster, the future looks dire unless the grid is upgraded sufficiently in rural areas In principle I agree that we should be looking down this road but there are currently so many ill thought out arguments for the net zero bandwagon I just get so exasperated when I see content like this (good as it is) but please can we have one hand on the tiller of practicality and common sense. The canal covering project seems infinetly more viable and at 400 km in length there must be some points at which electricity can be sensibly connected....
i live in lincolnshire renting a cottage on a farm (for 30 years), i am an environmental scientist and without going into detail i see the landowner and his farm manager implementing management processes that are on the surface 'environmentally friendly'. i know they are not. They merely pay lip service to the idea and increase his income from the various subsidies and grant's available. I have tried to talk to him about the real actions he could be taking, but since i am not a farmer he is simply not interested. I did my degree in a building split between 'the agrics' and 'the greenies' 40 years ago when environmental concerns were seen as almost fringe, ah the arguments in the common room! i know farming takes commitment and is getting more and more difficult and even having the time for you to get your thoughts across to less enlightened farmers is difficult but please try. Thanks.
@@billybunter9091 You're exaggerating, you're mistaken, and your can't-do attitude achieves nothing. Then you have the gall to complain that you're the one who's exasperated. I guess you'll be blocking traffic with your diesel tractor to protest the very idea that farmers need to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. If partially covering your baking crops with solar PV doesn't increase yield and isn't economically viable, feel free not to do it. But that leaves a whole lot of farmers with a clue.
The New England Solar Farm near Armidale,NSW,Australia was built in sheep grazing land. Today there are 6000 sheep living under the 400MW solar farm. The sheep eat the grass reducing maintenance costs. The panels drip dew into the grass and protect from frost that lengthens the growing season of the grass. Meanwhile the panels shelter the sheep from the rain which improves wool quality. Everybody from the farmers to the solar owners benefits.
The project also creates local jobs and supports community groups with regular donations and grants. Meanwhile, there is a concerted negative publicity campaign being waged by the local federal MP and his fossil fuel backers, spreading misinformation and outright lies about renewables.
@@Anomander64 Profits are evil if they motivate business, but non-existent with a bureaucracy - warn socialists. BS! Govt. is a scam. The bureaucracy "serves" itself.
@@Anomander64 Renewables need to make sense. The type the OP talked about makes perfect sense. There are those that don’t though. Each project has to be analyzed on the benefits it brings VS the upfront and long term costs which include environmental ones. Not every project makes sense. I am all for agrivoltaics and covering waterways in some areas with panels. Some places have installed floating panels on reservoirs to reduce losses due to evaporation.
As an engineer working for one of the bigger PV hardware makers and directly helping support Agrivoltaics developments, I think this is a VERY under-appreciated area. So many benefits of the whole system come from synergizing PV infrastructure with crops and other tangential infrastructure. You have covered many of the key benefits in this video and others: Cooler crops = better yields and less water usage; PV coverage can help add frost protection to sensitive crops; farmers gain financial diversification to resist crop price or yield downturns; animal agriculture gains shading for hotter and hotter areas and can synergize well with PV sites that need undergrowth control while the animals help to trample and fertilize the soil to make it resistant to erosion and deterioration
I agree and actually I work with ground mounted, standard height tracking infrastructure. Tall-overhead arrays are VERY expensive with the labor being much much higher and being one of the biggest single adders to $/W. It’s better to have shorter/smarter rows that can easily shift out of the way based on the current needs of the site rather than an overhead canopy. The overhead approach may be viable for certain situations, but its cost will make scaling it very difficult.
@@Mastermind1776 is there a main reason that the high mount panels are more expensive? I'm not too familiar with it, but engineering wise my gut feel is that high mount stationary panels and moving smart panels should be similar in cost if both were at maturity.
@ Some rough numbers are about $1/W for tracking ground level versus about $1.3/W for elevated fixed tilt. This doesn’t account for the added energy generation of tracking versus fixed tilt. Nowadays adding single axis tracking doesn’t add that much cost to a project (~$0.1/W) versus fixed tilt. System reliability is also good especially due to being able to react to weather and conditions. (Wind, hail, flood, snow, etc.) Energy increase: Single axis tracking gives on average ~30% more energy production versus fixed tilt arrays. Materials and construction cost: From a construction cost perspective you can think of this from a mass perspective: in general the more mass you have to deliver to a site and the more you have to raise it up (human labor and specialized machines) this adds a lot more cost (time, labor, and equipment that will need to be paid for during the construction process). If you put fixed tilt high up you will be adding a lot more cost while having less Wh of production versus overall cheaper tracking shoulder-height arrays that generate have better ROI.
Speed the day when 'solar panels on farms ruins our countryside ' changes to 'why is that field a barren monoculture instead of a biodiverse regenerative green solar farm?' Take solar panels, extend the legs from 5 feet to 14 feet, and watch the magic happen! No brainer.
@@petewright4640regenerative farming is NOT crop row synthetic salt based monoculture cropping... huge difference, maybe learn instead of try to confuse people in a weakly condescending way...
For me that is one of your best informative episodes. So much of the content was "I never knew that!". Added that you are one of the few TH-cam sources I trust, for others I need to go away and investigate, what they are saying is true, if not just to argue the comments I get in the pub where I'm the only (known) EV driver. On the agriculture side, I live in the Garden of England (Kent). Here we grow many fruit crops, spring is a beautiful season with many blooms, hence the Garden of England. Over the years and decades farmers have employed many solutions to protect their crops from the wind. One of the latest solutions to cope with the ever increasing demand for English fruit are poly tunnels. Now what is those poly tunnels where solar panel coverings? Well, Just have a think!
@@theoztreecrasher2647a LandRover or tractor sitting beside a grain dryer running it with a shaft or belt drive 24/7 seems a good idea to replace with an electric motor which doesn't need a quad-bike running up & down replacing the fuel. I'm certain there are many similar examples.
@ I don't think that there are many farms that do not use more efficient mains powered 3-phase electric drives for ALL their shed-based equipment! However it is going to be quite a while before fully-electric large field tractors/harvesters/haulage equipment are going to replace the current crop of diesel-engined models. That's not to say that it will never come. My old mate spent nearly 40 years driving a fully electric massive coal-mining dragline. However the giant cable bundle that fed it from the high tension lines had to be regularly shifted about by the fleet of Diesel-powered Caterpillar Dozers that did all the clean-up work around the dragline as it crawled along the strip. Horses for courses! The smart operators will focus on those sections of the process that can be easily switched first and wait for future developments in technology before bashing their heads in (what might be) vain against the more difficult sections to convert.
think about adding small biogas plant to your farm, you could get rid of plant and animal waste and have biogas that can be made into electricity and heat and give you fertilizer as a by product
I used to notice that the leaves on the rows of potatoes my dad planted in our large garden when I was a kid never grew up as high (and the potatoes were never quite as big) as the ones that had a little bit of shading from the day's sun. A few rows of solar panels above them might have improved my Chip dinners supply, lol
We used to start our potatoes in a box mounted on a sled and stored inside a shed during late winter (last week of March and through April). A small wood stove kept the frost at bay and when warm enough the sled and box were moved out in the sunlight during the day but stored back in in the nighttime when it was colder. We had potatoes in the first week of June as a result of this effort.
Really super video today. The key processes and issues described very accurately and clearly. Thanks for doing such a good job informing people of what’s going on and what we can do.
Agrivoltaics is one of the easier win-wins we have been given. Like any recent development, it doesn't have commoditized components and maintenance practices just yet, but with increased implementation those will come. The NIMBY crowd has made renewables very difficult where I live, and this type of PV gets us some wins without massive litigation. I still personally feel we need to somehow educate (or dominate) the NIMBY crowd as far as priorities are concerned. The view, much as I like it, is a lower priority than stabilizing our planet.
Why would anyone take a NIMBY view of PV panels on agricultural lands? Although he is foolish, I can understand Trump's delusions about wind turbines since they can be seen from miles away. But someone would need to be even more delusional than our soon-to-be felon in chief to challenge solar panels on someone else's land. What complaints do NIMBYs put forward against agrivoltaics?
@@JimHolder-pk2kkmany American farms are huge with a large acreage in the middle invisible from any boundary where NIMBYs would have no argument but across the rest of the world farms tend to be smaller.
@@JimHolder-pk2kk For the exact same reasons; in hilly areas PV can be seen for miles around. I imagine these NIMBYs are the ones also complaining about hail netting or greenhouses.
As always, THANK YOU for positive 'can do' communications regarding climate change. Hats off to all engineers and scientists coming up with these clever solutions.
Brilliant Dave, solid straight fundamentals, as ever. Did you see the sci / eco news of UV PV which are visible light clear, so protecting greenhouse plants from UV and allowing full spectrum photosynthesis by green things. Add that over public spaces in sun-struck regions, no need for liquid sunscreen or hats.
Don't rely on your government to do the right thing. Put up our own solar. Just buy a kit and follow the directions. It isn't that hard especially with the systems out today. They're basically plug and play.
Yep, I've seen those. Easy way to cut down your bill and reduce strain on the grid. You just can't plug in to many panels. You're not going to push more than 1800 watts on a 14ga wire. (120v X 15A =1800 Watts). If you have a 12ga wire you could do 2400W. That's only around 4-6 panels with micro inverters. @@b.w.1386
They are,..... Synergistic clean technologies like this will certainly be the way of the future. I mean we can get there now if we could just get the fossil fuel gang bosses out of our lives.... So much easier said than done unfortunately....
@@prolarkait would need to be a mighty strong storm. These systems are sturdy. However. a follow up on this channel to outline that would be a good topic to discuss.
Excellent video. Nice update with good facts and figures. Really like how bean counters make short term decisions and longer term decision are necessary.
4:06 I loved that solar panel! BTW, the idea of installing above channels like that also seems good. We have a channel like that in the Brazilian northeastern region and it's not far from the CHESF infrastructure. CHESF is the São Francisco (St. Francis of Assisi River) Hydroelectric Company that manages the many power plants of the São Francisco River.
Anyone with older children really must sit down with them, as a family, and watch this. It's essential that the availability of these options is understood and that the barriers to development are removed.
Thanks for providing this information and educating the world on people who are so often misinformed. This is a lot of good news for sunny countries but not me as my PV panels are not getting much sun today in the UK! 👍
So many papers from around the world all highlighting the merits. Thanks for sharing. ❤ Such a shame that individuals with no capacity for critical thinking are meanwhile promoting "drill baby drill". 😥
Agree... we need to adjust the market to favour renewables over gas. The problem (as I have been informed at least) is that gas energy providers must be paid enough to keep the plants operational, because if not then lots of people go without power at times of high energy use. The gas price is therefore paid to everyone (because it would be unfair to give PV producers less (for their identical product). Some people are talking about a change whereby the price is calculated regionally, so that if e.g. SE England needs gas power that doesn't mean that Scotland pays extra too, and they are probably right. IMO the stalemate gets eased if the UK significantly boosts its energy storage options, reducing the stranglehold of the gas suppliers. It is also helped by increasing the available PV & Wind supply and bringing online additional interconnectors to share load on a continental scale. Finally I do think there should be a policy based reduction in the gas price payable, basically mandating a reduction of e.g. 5% per quarter of the max electricity price payable to any provider. It would help signal to private industry where the investment should go and make it clear that high cost sources are no longer acceptable.
Lets twist that to "The problem with THE ENERGY MARKETS is THEY discriminate against Renewables costing *The Population* a HUGE amount of money..... Better?
There is an agrivoltaic project about to start opposite me. Until now it's been used once a year for a music festival and just laid to grass for the rest of the year. This will be a far more productive and bio-diverse use of the land. I'm looking forward to seeing how it's done!
So glad you're covering this topic as it seemed to come and go a couple of years ago without being properly assessed. Seems like there is more supporting information now to confirm its benefits which are patently clear and the cost of infrastructure argument is apparently now answered. There is, of course, the small matter of people's mindsets and the prevailing aesthetics to overcome. I have been broadly supportive of the CPRE's position of maxing out rooftop solar first but this does seem to swing the argument the other way where there are the concomitant benefits. There is also the practice of placing panels on green rooves although this would largely be in the commercial sphere. Just one query - have we knocked on the head the mineral resources issue that Simon Michaux has been so vocal about?
Not only that but the waste produced at the end of their 25 year (give or take) lifespan. We can be fairly confident that the cheaper they are in the first place, the less the economic benefits of recycling.
@ assuming we could achieve a more or less circular market in recycling minerals in principle the actuality would depend on a very different economic approach!
Dave, fantastic video. Really powerful, evidence based explanation of why agricultural "Voltaics" enhances agriculture and does not displace it. Keep up the great work
Actually, Australia has had an almost unprecedented wetter five years to date. The transformation in the continent is incredible and has seen dramatic increases in stocking rates and cropping of inland areas with the dams and inland lakes never being so full for so long. The tendency to damper weather patterns might be an aberration or it might be a change due to global warming, we don’t know, but it’s been brilliant nevertheless.
The Bureau of Meteorology's 124 year history of rainfall maps is interesting. I see 2018-2019 had record low rainfall; 2020-2021 had average rainfall (somewhat wetter south east); 2022 with above average over large areas; 2023 very dry south-west and near average elsewhere. These are my very broad observations of the maps, as your actual experience is of course going to depend on location. Very broadly, historically there seems to be a cyclic pattern of about 5-10 years drier followed by 5-10 years wetter.
@ Depends on the region. What has been very different for the last five years is the consistency of inland lakes filling, it’s not happened since the mid 19th century. Point I was trying to make though is the claim that it’s getting drier in Australia, and clearly it’s not, just the increased expense of flood insurance lately shows considerably more rainfall occurring on the eastern third of the continent.
@ The West has just brought in a bumper harvest. Sure parts of the West were dry last year, but the claim was Australia is dryer, when actually most of it has been wetter for five years and heading into another year now.
Thank you, Dave. I live in rural Wales and I see a lot of useable farm land covered in photo- voltaics. I don't see any evidence of these high level structures such as your video shows just the minimal, minimum cost frames. It's a bit difficult to pry into what's going on and with several incidents of cabling thefts it's easy to see why farmers are not keen for us to see whether grazing is happening there but I suspect not. As you say in your presentation, regarding additional costs, planning and grant aid needs to be conditional on the manner in which these installations are made.
A lot of farmers don't own the land or buildings they use to farm, so it's down to the landlords to allow solar, then these are regs to get agreed, and the local grid can take the extra power, which most farmers find is the stumbling block.
You do see a fair bit of standing PV and on-roof PV in rural south-western Ontario, in Canada. Adoption will vary both by latitude and (more so) by governmental policy. Farmers will take the steps if you make it pay and don't take up too much of their time with regulatory work.
Great video Dave, would be great if some of those agric type fellows, or people, saw this... The numbers you showed us makes this one of those blindingly obvious investments, except maybe the sun isn't quite as generous back here in old Blighty....
The California Aqueduct is over 440 miles long and it's estimated it loses 25,000 acre feet of water to evaporation every year. The Central Arizona Project is over 330 miles long and its estimated to loose 16,000 acre feet of water to evaporation every year. Combined, more than 13.3 billion gallons of fresh water is lost to evaporation every year from these two systems; enough water to supply nearly 165,000 (American) households for a year or, a quintillion European households.
Solar panels above crops and above canals make a lot of good sense, but they need to be structurally stout enough to handle the wind load, which will increase as the climate grows warmer.
Define effective: Over asphalt means they will be hotter and produce less. But their is no effect on the ground and they already have shade cloths structures being built their.
You lose the environmental benefits of decreased evaporation from soil and the cooling effect improving the PV efficiency, but the tradeoff is that you provide tangible benefits for a broader human audience. Covered car parks would be cooler, and done at scale you could even reduce the heating effect of asphalt in urban areas. A lot more people are going to notice those benefits than anything that takes place "out on the farm," which could positively influence solar adoption. Most importantly, both projects can take place at once. No need to limit ourselves!
I live in the southwest, US, in Arizona, where we have received almost no moisture in the past 6 months, which is becoming the norm here. Anyone who denies climate change, isn’t dealing with reality.
I’m horticulture consultant. And i have done some very small scale setups. Wind blocking High above berry crops. Field “roads “ cover very similar to the canal covers
Any approach that spreads out production will be a net benefit to a country's national security due to making its power grid less centralized and thus less sensitive to attack. That water can be conserved and farm output improved is a wonderful bonus!
I am constantly countering the misinformation and lies being spread by idiots against agrivoltaics. Thank you for giving me the perfect balanced video to post as an answer to their incorect statments.
Nice to hear of a good example in agrivoltaics of making synergy pay. I'm sure there are many other opportunities for initiatives that make valuable improvements in multiple areas whilst harvesting solar energy, but delivering them will require rethinking traditional ownership, business and regulatory boundaries. It can be done with the necessary imagination and determination. We don't have to wait until the sand is too hot for sticking our heads in.
Honestly as a lifelong lover of anything made with apples, whether plain apples, homemade applesauce, apple crisp, apple cider and hard cider and everything else, if AI kills my job in Marketing my dream is to start an Apple orchard with agrivoltaics and make direct-to-customer foods & beverages like specialty ciders and applesauce from them. I truly see Agrivoltaics as the missing link to making our agriculture hardier against climate change’s heat and droughts while simultaneously bumping our clean energy. In the US there’s apparently an average of $700-$2,000 per acre annually paid out to the landowners for leasing. If I made an Orchard that was 50 acres, it may not make me enough to give away product for free, but it absolutely would be enough to make me able to sell at better margins by selling at price parity while having that extra revenue stream and saving water.
This was an awesome video! Very informative! On the subject of canals, (I might have seen it here) but scientists have recently discovered that light photons evaporate more water than the heat from sunlight, making photovoltaic canal shade even more sensible.
In Australia we only need 1,200 square kilometres of solar to be 100% renewable. Our commercial and residential buildings cover approximately 2,800 square kilometres . We have 826,000 kilometres of roads, 32,000 kilometres of railway lines, pretty well every farm has non arable areas that could be used and about 5 million square kilometres of desert. If you build a solar platform from say galvanised steel pipes it should last for a couple thousand years so every 20 -30 years when the panels need replacing you don't have to build a new structure, just clip on the new ones.
Nice video; Thanks, Except for cleaning I've never understood the need to keep panels close to ground. Just think of all the freeway area that is sacrificed. Canals are life givers whether their bounty be water, people or goods and services.
We just got a battery and a solar system installed on our roof and we have been completely off the grid for about a week now. We are still connected to the grid but we barely use any power from it. Funnily the grid uses our battery as load balancing we get paid to do that too as well as selling our excess solar. Our EV has been carbon free for the past 3 days as well. Its great.
Solar and agriculture keeps gaining on the quality data! Any panel support structure also opens irrigation and crop protection options to the innovative farmer entity.
Love the idea. Are they more susceptible to weather extremes when raised that much higher? In drought prone region I would love to see agri-voltaics and biochar in the soils below
It’s one of the more logical and efficient methods in use. Saves soil from dehydrating, which improves crop yields, all under the canopy of solar panels.
As stated on my favorite podcast this week - we don't have technology problem, we have paper problem. The permits, for example. Or, as in Europe - if you have field and decide to utilize agri-voltaics, you might loose the subsidies :(
Having the same problem here in NZ with wanting to do vehicle to dwelling power sharing.... the govt regulations have not yet been adapted to allow it yet!!
@@geirmyrvagnes8718 I wish things were just so black and white in real life. What I say is that I am glad I can have my opinion, but I don't have to have the responsibility of the decision.
I grew up on a Gippsland (Aust) dairy farm. Our track to the paddocks at the back of the farm would have done with a solar cell covering. Still would. Plus, my parents were living until very recently in Mulwala (NSW) and there are nearly 3000 km of irrigation channels from Lake Mulwala, covering both Victoria and southern NSW all could be better with a solar panel covering to prevent water loss through evaporation. Win, win.
These exciting developments highlight an unexciting but vital issue. Much of the key innovation required for the extension of solar applications is in the development of cheap and adaptable racking systems. When those systems develop, panels also get lighter for their output and panel production costs fall further agrivoltaics, solar canals, solar hydro, solar dams, roadside solar, solar fencing, commercial rooftops, carports and the rest will hopefully become a no brainer for those who own working land.
Here in the eastern USA we have a local lake that is plagued with algae blooms. I’ve often wondered how much of the lake would have to be covered by solar panels to mitigate its growth and if it would actually benefit the lake long term.
The algae blooms are because of nutrient pollution. Stop the pollution and the lakes would be teaming with life. Blocking the light would kill what life there is, including the blooms.
@@ChrisNotTheKing That wouldn’t be unusual, but the lake is natural and in a more wooded part of the state. I’ll have to look at it from the air, just out of curiosity. Alge hasn’t been a big problem that I’ve heard of in other lakes in the area.
The Gila River Tribe of Arizona are leading the way in the U.S. They also have led the way on "Water Compact" Law, across the Colorado River region [SW], for all the nation. California has a program developing in the Turlock [Central Valley] Water District.
I’m a UK farmer and analysis of our jobs shows that we farmers are essentially solar harvesters whether it is growing plants for food or employing technology to produce energy.
Currently there’s a perception by those (usually with valuable property here in the UK countryside) that it’s either use farmland to grow food =good👍or ‘waste’ this valuable resource by producing electricity through “rip off” get rich schemes by those “determined to wreck our wonderful countryside” =bad👎
We need to move on from this ignorant nonsense and, with smart technology, start integrating all types of energy production with food production so that we can more easily access benefits such as the decarbonisation of agriculture through electrification of farm equipment for example
Currently there’s are too many naysayers and too many with vested interests in the status quo holding sway, dragging their feet and stalling the development of this game changing approach.
Sadly resistance to change and opportunity is all too prevalent 😏
🤞🏻that changes quickly
Good luck 🍀
1. Surely the answer in the first instance is produce electricity where it is needed i.e solar roof top. The infrastrucure for what is described in the video will require massive grid connections and transfer of that energy (massive infrastructure) and a long time scale....
2.Fruit and some vegetable farms this may work but not broad acre farming.Gps would not work and lets not forget that some of the machinery now is up to 48metres in width...
3.Electrification of agricultural machinery is in its infancy simply because battery tech is probably at least 2 decades away from providing a solution. There is no regen braking, its solid 'grunt' 350kwh, 16hrs a day, you are looking at something that currently weighs 20 tons (battery). We have one machine that is electric,(30% more cost than an ice eqivalent) 18hrs to charge for 2.5 hours use, we dont have a good enough grid connection for anything faster, the future looks dire unless the grid is upgraded sufficiently in rural areas
In principle I agree that we should be looking down this road but there are currently so many ill thought out arguments for the net zero bandwagon I just get so exasperated when I see content like this (good as it is) but please can we have one hand on the tiller of practicality and common sense. The canal covering project seems infinetly more viable and at 400 km in length there must be some points at which electricity can be sensibly connected....
i live in lincolnshire renting a cottage on a farm (for 30 years), i am an environmental scientist and without going into detail i see the landowner and his farm manager implementing management processes that are on the surface 'environmentally friendly'. i know they are not. They merely pay lip service to the idea and increase his income from the various subsidies and grant's available. I have tried to talk to him about the real actions he could be taking, but since i am not a farmer he is simply not interested. I did my degree in a building split between 'the agrics' and 'the greenies' 40 years ago when environmental concerns were seen as almost fringe, ah the arguments in the common room! i know farming takes commitment and is getting more and more difficult and even having the time for you to get your thoughts across to less enlightened farmers is difficult but please try. Thanks.
i think UK could really pop off with offshore wind farms, its just asking to be harnessed, maybe not so much with photovoltaics
@@billybunter9091 You're exaggerating, you're mistaken, and your can't-do attitude achieves nothing. Then you have the gall to complain that you're the one who's exasperated. I guess you'll be blocking traffic with your diesel tractor to protest the very idea that farmers need to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.
If partially covering your baking crops with solar PV doesn't increase yield and isn't economically viable, feel free not to do it. But that leaves a whole lot of farmers with a clue.
The New England Solar Farm near Armidale,NSW,Australia was built in sheep grazing land. Today there are 6000 sheep living under the 400MW solar farm. The sheep eat the grass reducing maintenance costs. The panels drip dew into the grass and protect from frost that lengthens the growing season of the grass. Meanwhile the panels shelter the sheep from the rain which improves wool quality. Everybody from the farmers to the solar owners benefits.
The project also creates local jobs and supports community groups with regular donations and grants.
Meanwhile, there is a concerted negative publicity campaign being waged by the local federal MP and his fossil fuel backers, spreading misinformation and outright lies about renewables.
@@Anomander64 Profits are evil if they motivate business, but non-existent with a bureaucracy - warn socialists. BS! Govt. is a scam. The bureaucracy "serves" itself.
@@Anomander64 I was going to say that it's ironic that Barnaby is one of the most vocal opponents to renewable energy and is the MP for New England. 😢
@@Anomander64 naysayers 😢
@@Anomander64 Renewables need to make sense. The type the OP talked about makes perfect sense. There are those that don’t though. Each project has to be analyzed on the benefits it brings VS the upfront and long term costs which include environmental ones. Not every project makes sense. I am all for agrivoltaics and covering waterways in some areas with panels. Some places have installed floating panels on reservoirs to reduce losses due to evaporation.
Farmers in Australia receive $1500 per acre for a solar farm, the benefits are the grassland is protected and the sheep can still graze the land.
That’s actually sick. I’d imagine water retention is better too, since the solar panels eat a lot of the energy.
Edit: based af name.
Wow, a smart ethical and beneficial government policy. Amazing.
$1500 per Hectare on the top end, not every farmer gets this much. Still a decent policy though...
@@FuIhat it can be win win win
lol those of us who have vines witch AV works really well with don't get jack all.
I have a large commercial greenhouse here in the UK. It needs shading in the summer. Maybe this could be useful 🤔
And perhaps profitable in multiple counts, the message appears to be.
Very nice.
And they might provide enough energy for some degree of frost protection it the winter?
As an engineer working for one of the bigger PV hardware makers and directly helping support Agrivoltaics developments, I think this is a VERY under-appreciated area. So many benefits of the whole system come from synergizing PV infrastructure with crops and other tangential infrastructure. You have covered many of the key benefits in this video and others:
Cooler crops = better yields and less water usage; PV coverage can help add frost protection to sensitive crops; farmers gain financial diversification to resist crop price or yield downturns; animal agriculture gains shading for hotter and hotter areas and can synergize well with PV sites that need undergrowth control while the animals help to trample and fertilize the soil to make it resistant to erosion and deterioration
while I can see the benefits of solar mounted higher over fields with crops whats the expected extra cost as a % over normal ground mounted solar?
I agree and actually I work with ground mounted, standard height tracking infrastructure. Tall-overhead arrays are VERY expensive with the labor being much much higher and being one of the biggest single adders to $/W. It’s better to have shorter/smarter rows that can easily shift out of the way based on the current needs of the site rather than an overhead canopy. The overhead approach may be viable for certain situations, but its cost will make scaling it very difficult.
@@Mastermind1776 is there a main reason that the high mount panels are more expensive? I'm not too familiar with it, but engineering wise my gut feel is that high mount stationary panels and moving smart panels should be similar in cost if both were at maturity.
@ Some rough numbers are about $1/W for tracking ground level versus about $1.3/W for elevated fixed tilt. This doesn’t account for the added energy generation of tracking versus fixed tilt.
Nowadays adding single axis tracking doesn’t add that much cost to a project (~$0.1/W) versus fixed tilt. System reliability is also good especially due to being able to react to weather and conditions. (Wind, hail, flood, snow, etc.)
Energy increase: Single axis tracking gives on average ~30% more energy production versus fixed tilt arrays.
Materials and construction cost: From a construction cost perspective you can think of this from a mass perspective: in general the more mass you have to deliver to a site and the more you have to raise it up (human labor and specialized machines) this adds a lot more cost (time, labor, and equipment that will need to be paid for during the construction process).
If you put fixed tilt high up you will be adding a lot more cost while having less Wh of production versus overall cheaper tracking shoulder-height arrays that generate have better ROI.
@ I would assume higher up solar installs would also benefit from double-sided panels more?
Speed the day when 'solar panels on farms ruins our countryside ' changes to 'why is that field a barren monoculture instead of a biodiverse regenerative green solar farm?' Take solar panels, extend the legs from 5 feet to 14 feet, and watch the magic happen! No brainer.
Why would it be "biodiverse" just because the land is under solar panels. Also land can be biodiverse without. It depends on the agricultural system.
@petewright4640 because that's what regenerative farming does
@@jonathanclutton2813 Regenerative farming doesn't need solar panels.
11:43 This is the United States. We specialize in irrational public perceptions about solar panels. It's what we do.
@@petewright4640regenerative farming is NOT crop row synthetic salt based monoculture cropping... huge difference, maybe learn instead of try to confuse people in a weakly condescending way...
For me that is one of your best informative episodes. So much of the content was "I never knew that!". Added that you are one of the few TH-cam sources I trust, for others I need to go away and investigate, what they are saying is true, if not just to argue the comments I get in the pub where I'm the only (known) EV driver.
On the agriculture side, I live in the Garden of England (Kent). Here we grow many fruit crops, spring is a beautiful season with many blooms, hence the Garden of England.
Over the years and decades farmers have employed many solutions to protect their crops from the wind.
One of the latest solutions to cope with the ever increasing demand for English fruit are poly tunnels.
Now what is those poly tunnels where solar
panel coverings?
Well, Just have a think!
To respond to your question: We're all in. We;ve been electrifying our farm equipment, so the solar panels "gas up" our farm equipment.
A full resume of all your farm gear and circumstances would give greater weight to your post. 😉😊
@@theoztreecrasher2647a LandRover or tractor sitting beside a grain dryer running it with a shaft or belt drive 24/7 seems a good idea to replace with an electric motor which doesn't need a quad-bike running up & down replacing the fuel.
I'm certain there are many similar examples.
@ I don't think that there are many farms that do not use more efficient mains powered 3-phase electric drives for ALL their shed-based equipment! However it is going to be quite a while before fully-electric large field tractors/harvesters/haulage equipment are going to replace the current crop of diesel-engined models.
That's not to say that it will never come. My old mate spent nearly 40 years driving a fully electric massive coal-mining dragline. However the giant cable bundle that fed it from the high tension lines had to be regularly shifted about by the fleet of Diesel-powered Caterpillar Dozers that did all the clean-up work around the dragline as it crawled along the strip.
Horses for courses! The smart operators will focus on those sections of the process that can be easily switched first and wait for future developments in technology before bashing their heads in (what might be) vain against the more difficult sections to convert.
think about adding small biogas plant to your farm, you could get rid of plant and animal waste and have biogas that can be made into electricity and heat and give you fertilizer as a by product
I used to notice that the leaves on the rows of potatoes my dad planted in our large garden when I was a kid never grew up as high (and the potatoes were never quite as big) as the ones that had a little bit of shading from the day's sun. A few rows of solar panels above them might have improved my Chip dinners supply, lol
We used to start our potatoes in a box mounted on a sled and stored inside a shed during late winter (last week of March and through April). A small wood stove kept the frost at bay and when warm enough the sled and box were moved out in the sunlight during the day but stored back in in the nighttime when it was colder. We had potatoes in the first week of June as a result of this effort.
Yes
Really super video today. The key processes and issues described very accurately and clearly. Thanks for doing such a good job informing people of what’s going on and what we can do.
Absolutely agree! This was a particularly good one, Dave!
Agrivoltaics is one of the easier win-wins we have been given. Like any recent development, it doesn't have commoditized components and maintenance practices just yet, but with increased implementation those will come. The NIMBY crowd has made renewables very difficult where I live, and this type of PV gets us some wins without massive litigation. I still personally feel we need to somehow educate (or dominate) the NIMBY crowd as far as priorities are concerned. The view, much as I like it, is a lower priority than stabilizing our planet.
Why would anyone take a NIMBY view of PV panels on agricultural lands?
Although he is foolish, I can understand Trump's delusions about wind turbines since they can be seen from miles away. But someone would need to be even more delusional than our soon-to-be felon in chief to challenge solar panels on someone else's land. What complaints do NIMBYs put forward against agrivoltaics?
@@JimHolder-pk2kk I think they're just greedy and jealous.
@@JimHolder-pk2kk"we can see them" is sufficient argument for NIMBYs 😢
@@JimHolder-pk2kkmany American farms are huge with a large acreage in the middle invisible from any boundary where NIMBYs would have no argument but across the rest of the world farms tend to be smaller.
@@JimHolder-pk2kk For the exact same reasons; in hilly areas PV can be seen for miles around. I imagine these NIMBYs are the ones also complaining about hail netting or greenhouses.
This should be compulsory viewing for all the planning departments across the UK!
Expand that to the planet and you're on to something.
Great idea. I'll do KCC but wont hold my breath.
Except wind and solar are totally unreliable in the uk think tidal and nuclear
@@PolygonSwan exactly. Not enough sun
Just waiting on solar to get delivered to my house well excited.
you'll love it. just had mine installed. sooo much power. even a sunny winter day!
My favourite bit is checking the app to see how much power is being produced and comparing it with other people in the office with solar.
I am just waiting for some sun to be delivered to my solar panels :) Been soooo gloomy. 8Mths a year you will love it.
Thank you, Dave, so much for this environmental energy learning!!!
As always, THANK YOU for positive 'can do' communications regarding climate change. Hats off to all engineers and scientists coming up with these clever solutions.
Clearly explained and great editing/graphics/presentation as always. Your videos are a joy to watch 😊 Surely agri-voltaics are a win-win for everyone!
Another great report! Of course, open farmland can be triple-used if you put wind turbines on it as well!
Thank so much for your enlightning work.
Brilliant Dave, solid straight fundamentals, as ever.
Did you see the sci / eco news of UV PV which are visible light clear, so protecting greenhouse plants from UV and allowing full spectrum photosynthesis by green things. Add that over public spaces in sun-struck regions, no need for liquid sunscreen or hats.
Don't rely on your government to do the right thing. Put up our own solar. Just buy a kit and follow the directions. It isn't that hard especially with the systems out today. They're basically plug and play.
Balcony solar. Don't even need a permit! and you can plug into the house for savings with no safety concerns.
Yep, I've seen those. Easy way to cut down your bill and reduce strain on the grid. You just can't plug in to many panels. You're not going to push more than 1800 watts on a 14ga wire. (120v X 15A =1800 Watts). If you have a 12ga wire you could do 2400W. That's only around 4-6 panels with micro inverters. @@b.w.1386
Agrivoltaics just seems like a win-win in every way you look at it.
Bingo! They really are part of a wholistic approach to agriculture aren't they?
They are,..... Synergistic clean technologies like this will certainly be the way of the future. I mean we can get there now if we could just get the fossil fuel gang bosses out of our lives.... So much easier said than done unfortunately....
@@Krill_all_health_insuranceCEOs BIG OIL is protected by their cronies - GOVT. Govt. is the problem, NOT the solution.
They are all good until a storm destroys them.
@@prolarkait would need to be a mighty strong storm. These systems are sturdy. However. a follow up on this channel to outline that would be a good topic to discuss.
Cool. Floating solar on reservoirs have similar benefits.
I'd like to see solar and sheep grazing share the same land in the UK. Should provide some welcome shelter for the animals too.
Thanks for your work, good to hear some hopeful news.
Excellent video. Nice update with good facts and figures. Really like how bean counters make short term decisions and longer term decision are necessary.
There is also floating PV on reservoirs that also reduces evaporation where applied appropriately.
Thanks for opening my eyes to Agrivoltaics!!
Dave, also panels on things like packing sheds could lower the need for cooling workers inside. So not just to the benefit of the crop or animals.
Thanks for starting off this year with a very positive message.
4:06 I loved that solar panel! BTW, the idea of installing above channels like that also seems good. We have a channel like that in the Brazilian northeastern region and it's not far from the CHESF infrastructure. CHESF is the São Francisco (St. Francis of Assisi River) Hydroelectric Company that manages the many power plants of the São Francisco River.
Excellent as usual Dave.
Anyone with older children really must sit down with them, as a family, and watch this. It's essential that the availability of these options is understood and that the barriers to development are removed.
Thanks for providing this information and educating the world on people who are so often misinformed. This is a lot of good news for sunny countries but not me as my PV panels are not getting much sun today in the UK! 👍
So many papers from around the world all highlighting the merits. Thanks for sharing. ❤
Such a shame that individuals with no capacity for critical thinking are meanwhile promoting "drill baby drill". 😥
Love your humor. The subtle comment in regards to the Carrot man on the other side of the pond. 😂 Priceless 🎉
The problem with renewables now is not about cost but with the way energy markets are structured
Agree... we need to adjust the market to favour renewables over gas. The problem (as I have been informed at least) is that gas energy providers must be paid enough to keep the plants operational, because if not then lots of people go without power at times of high energy use. The gas price is therefore paid to everyone (because it would be unfair to give PV producers less (for their identical product).
Some people are talking about a change whereby the price is calculated regionally, so that if e.g. SE England needs gas power that doesn't mean that Scotland pays extra too, and they are probably right.
IMO the stalemate gets eased if the UK significantly boosts its energy storage options, reducing the stranglehold of the gas suppliers. It is also helped by increasing the available PV & Wind supply and bringing online additional interconnectors to share load on a continental scale.
Finally I do think there should be a policy based reduction in the gas price payable, basically mandating a reduction of e.g. 5% per quarter of the max electricity price payable to any provider. It would help signal to private industry where the investment should go and make it clear that high cost sources are no longer acceptable.
Lets twist that to "The problem with THE ENERGY MARKETS is THEY discriminate against Renewables costing *The Population* a HUGE amount of money.....
Better?
Thanks
There is an agrivoltaic project about to start opposite me. Until now it's been used once a year for a music festival and just laid to grass for the rest of the year. This will be a far more productive and bio-diverse use of the land. I'm looking forward to seeing how it's done!
Thanks!
So glad you're covering this topic as it seemed to come and go a couple of years ago without being properly assessed. Seems like there is more supporting information now to confirm its benefits which are patently clear and the cost of infrastructure argument is apparently now answered. There is, of course, the small matter of people's mindsets and the prevailing aesthetics to overcome. I have been broadly supportive of the CPRE's position of maxing out rooftop solar first but this does seem to swing the argument the other way where there are the concomitant benefits. There is also the practice of placing panels on green rooves although this would largely be in the commercial sphere.
Just one query - have we knocked on the head the mineral resources issue that Simon Michaux has been so vocal about?
Not only that but the waste produced at the end of their 25 year (give or take) lifespan. We can be fairly confident that the cheaper they are in the first place, the less the economic benefits of recycling.
@ assuming we could achieve a more or less circular market in recycling minerals in principle the actuality would depend on a very different economic approach!
Dave, fantastic video. Really powerful, evidence based explanation of why agricultural "Voltaics" enhances agriculture and does not displace it.
Keep up the great work
I love this, it’s so clever and gives me real hope for our future.
Actually, Australia has had an almost unprecedented wetter five years to date. The transformation in the continent is incredible and has seen dramatic increases in stocking rates and cropping of inland areas with the dams and inland lakes never being so full for so long. The tendency to damper weather patterns might be an aberration or it might be a change due to global warming, we don’t know, but it’s been brilliant nevertheless.
The Bureau of Meteorology's 124 year history of rainfall maps is interesting. I see 2018-2019 had record low rainfall; 2020-2021 had average rainfall (somewhat wetter south east); 2022 with above average over large areas; 2023 very dry south-west and near average elsewhere. These are my very broad observations of the maps, as your actual experience is of course going to depend on location.
Very broadly, historically there seems to be a cyclic pattern of about 5-10 years drier followed by 5-10 years wetter.
@ Depends on the region. What has been very different for the last five years is the consistency of inland lakes filling, it’s not happened since the mid 19th century.
Point I was trying to make though is the claim that it’s getting drier in Australia, and clearly it’s not, just the increased expense of flood insurance lately shows considerably more rainfall occurring on the eastern third of the continent.
@@seanlander9321 You're right. Regional. "Clearly it's not" again can only be interpreted regionally.
On the West coast it is very definitely not wetter. A good proportion of Australian farm produce comes from WA.
@ The West has just brought in a bumper harvest. Sure parts of the West were dry last year, but the claim was Australia is dryer, when actually most of it has been wetter for five years and heading into another year now.
At 10.26, the rabbit running away from the giant farm equipment, made my day!
Yes,
Also above parkings, and bus stations and terminals.
Along canals, and creeks, and above or along meadows
Appreciate your update,
Thank you, Dave. I live in rural Wales and I see a lot of useable farm land covered in photo- voltaics. I don't see any evidence of these high level structures such as your video shows just the minimal, minimum cost frames. It's a bit difficult to pry into what's going on and with several incidents of cabling thefts it's easy to see why farmers are not keen for us to see whether grazing is happening there but I suspect not. As you say in your presentation, regarding additional costs, planning and grant aid needs to be conditional on the manner in which these installations are made.
I propose that we call any farmer who deploys agrivoltaics a photon farmer - or more concisely a 'pharmer' 😁
❤You ROCK 🎉‼️~ LOVE ❤️ YOU wisdom to us all ~ David Ford in NZ 🇳🇿
This is exactly what we need to see more of. Especially as the climate warms up and weather patterns are all over the place.
Talk of farming: why is it I so very rarely see farms with PV fitted to the farm buildings, etc? It feels like a win for the farmer no matter what.
They prefer to waste their cash on the latest John Deere 🙄
A lot of farmers don't own the land or buildings they use to farm, so it's down to the landlords to allow solar, then these are regs to get agreed, and the local grid can take the extra power, which most farmers find is the stumbling block.
Is it because all their energy costs are set against tax anyway so why bother?
You do see a fair bit of standing PV and on-roof PV in rural south-western Ontario, in Canada. Adoption will vary both by latitude and (more so) by governmental policy. Farmers will take the steps if you make it pay and don't take up too much of their time with regulatory work.
Great video and interesting to see the uses of solar with agriculture especially as there doesn't seem to be many downsides.
Well explained as usual
Great video Dave, would be great if some of those agric type fellows, or people, saw this... The numbers you showed us makes this one of those blindingly obvious investments, except maybe the sun isn't quite as generous back here in old Blighty....
I'm looking forward to staying my homestead and agrivoltaics is definitely in the planning.
The California Aqueduct is over 440 miles long and it's estimated it loses 25,000 acre feet of water to evaporation every year. The Central Arizona Project is over 330 miles long and its estimated to loose 16,000 acre feet of water to evaporation every year. Combined, more than 13.3 billion gallons of fresh water is lost to evaporation every year from these two systems; enough water to supply nearly 165,000 (American) households for a year or, a quintillion European households.
A whole months worth of water for LA (@ 450M GPD)
That's impressive!
"25,000 acre feet"
Mmmmm.... "Freedom Units"!
Very promising! A new Aussie paper was released just as this video appeared. Sent via my usual spam lol on Patreon. Cheers
Solar panels above crops and above canals make a lot of good sense, but they need to be structurally stout enough to handle the wind load, which will increase as the climate grows warmer.
If a section is sometimes knocked down by wind, replace that section with stronger frames.
Windflow will be generally localised.
Brilliant! Need much more of this!
Brilliant video.
Governments and decision makers pay attention and get on with it! :)
Great information, well presented. As usual!
I’ve often wondered about the car parks with solar panels. Are they as effective as this farming technology? Thanks for your brilliant work Dave.
Define effective: Over asphalt means they will be hotter and produce less. But their is no effect on the ground and they already have shade cloths structures being built their.
@ good point. France likes them so much that they have passed laws that all new car parks must be covered with solar.
You lose the environmental benefits of decreased evaporation from soil and the cooling effect improving the PV efficiency, but the tradeoff is that you provide tangible benefits for a broader human audience. Covered car parks would be cooler, and done at scale you could even reduce the heating effect of asphalt in urban areas. A lot more people are going to notice those benefits than anything that takes place "out on the farm," which could positively influence solar adoption. Most importantly, both projects can take place at once. No need to limit ourselves!
@@timtuff7683technically if you do both you have to do less elsewhere to pay for it.
I live in the southwest, US, in Arizona, where we have received almost no moisture in the past 6 months, which is becoming the norm here. Anyone who denies climate change, isn’t dealing with reality.
"Arizona ... no moisture in the past 6 months":
Pacific Ocean currently La Niña. Dry USA SW, wet Aus east.
Change is in weather, not climate.
I’m horticulture consultant. And i have done some very small scale setups.
Wind blocking
High above berry crops.
Field “roads “ cover very similar to the canal covers
Your work on bringing this information to us is amazing.
Thank you Dave. Glad to hear something new (to me).
Clearly food for thought - thanks
Any approach that spreads out production will be a net benefit to a country's national security due to making its power grid less centralized and thus less sensitive to attack. That water can be conserved and farm output improved is a wonderful bonus!
"....an economy driven purely by quarterly results." Wonderfully subversive Dave 👍
Thank you for the commentary, Dave.
Great video Dave, I'd love to see agri-voltaics developed in the UK, along with combining PV with conservation areas on former landfills and coal tips
Excellent presentation, thanks.
Very nice video. Excellent presentation of really important ideas.
Good news and great video,. Cheers, Dave!
I am constantly countering the misinformation and lies being spread by idiots against agrivoltaics.
Thank you for giving me the perfect balanced video to post as an answer to their incorect statments.
Nice to hear of a good example in agrivoltaics of making synergy pay. I'm sure there are many other opportunities for initiatives that make valuable improvements in multiple areas whilst harvesting solar energy, but delivering them will require rethinking traditional ownership, business and regulatory boundaries. It can be done with the necessary imagination and determination. We don't have to wait until the sand is too hot for sticking our heads in.
Honestly as a lifelong lover of anything made with apples, whether plain apples, homemade applesauce, apple crisp, apple cider and hard cider and everything else, if AI kills my job in Marketing my dream is to start an Apple orchard with agrivoltaics and make direct-to-customer foods & beverages like specialty ciders and applesauce from them. I truly see Agrivoltaics as the missing link to making our agriculture hardier against climate change’s heat and droughts while simultaneously bumping our clean energy.
In the US there’s apparently an average of $700-$2,000 per acre annually paid out to the landowners for leasing. If I made an Orchard that was 50 acres, it may not make me enough to give away product for free, but it absolutely would be enough to make me able to sell at better margins by selling at price parity while having that extra revenue stream and saving water.
This was an awesome video! Very informative! On the subject of canals, (I might have seen it here) but scientists have recently discovered that light photons evaporate more water than the heat from sunlight, making photovoltaic canal shade even more sensible.
Big oil has certainly kept this information out of our news.
In Australia we only need 1,200 square kilometres of solar to be 100% renewable. Our commercial and residential buildings cover approximately 2,800 square kilometres . We have 826,000 kilometres of roads, 32,000 kilometres of railway lines, pretty well every farm has non arable areas that could be used and about 5 million square kilometres of desert. If you build a solar platform from say galvanised steel pipes it should last for a couple thousand years so every 20 -30 years when the panels need replacing you don't have to build a new structure, just clip on the new ones.
Or over car parks! plug in, charge up, not hot, not wet, no snow...
@@b.w.1386What is snow?
@@ChrisNotTheKing "What is snow?" Sand composed of water.
Once more, thankyou for a rational, factual and intelligent discussion of a very important subject
Nice video; Thanks,
Except for cleaning I've never understood the need to keep panels close to ground. Just think of all the freeway area that is sacrificed. Canals are life givers whether their bounty be water, people or goods and services.
We just got a battery and a solar system installed on our roof and we have been completely off the grid for about a week now. We are still connected to the grid but we barely use any power from it. Funnily the grid uses our battery as load balancing we get paid to do that too as well as selling our excess solar.
Our EV has been carbon free for the past 3 days as well. Its great.
Solar and agriculture keeps gaining on the quality data!
Any panel support structure also opens irrigation and crop protection options to the innovative farmer entity.
Great explantion Dave !
Excellent video! Thank you for your insight.
You are absolutely right again. GOVERNMENT SHOULD SUPERSEDE CORPORATE GREED!!! Let's put that on a T-shirt. 😊
And if a corporate action benefits the community the goverment should give a little of that benefit to the corporation to encourage them to do so.
Love the idea. Are they more susceptible to weather extremes when raised that much higher? In drought prone region I would love to see agri-voltaics and biochar in the soils below
It’s one of the more logical and efficient methods in use.
Saves soil from dehydrating, which improves crop yields, all under the canopy of solar panels.
As stated on my favorite podcast this week - we don't have technology problem, we have paper problem. The permits, for example. Or, as in Europe - if you have field and decide to utilize agri-voltaics, you might loose the subsidies :(
Having the same problem here in NZ with wanting to do vehicle to dwelling power sharing.... the govt regulations have not yet been adapted to allow it yet!!
So what you guys are saying, is that if you voted in some guys who actually managed to reduce the paper problem significantly, that might help? 😇
@@geirmyrvagnes8718 I wish things were just so black and white in real life. What I say is that I am glad I can have my opinion, but I don't have to have the responsibility of the decision.
@@geirmyrvagnes8718 ...but we are continually swimming against a flood of elective ignorance in the general public.
I grew up on a Gippsland (Aust) dairy farm. Our track to the paddocks at the back of the farm would have done with a solar cell covering. Still would. Plus, my parents were living until very recently in Mulwala (NSW) and there are nearly 3000 km of irrigation channels from Lake Mulwala, covering both Victoria and southern NSW all could be better with a solar panel covering to prevent water loss through evaporation. Win, win.
Nice one, good to see all those studies proving the point
All in, bro.
Great video as usual 👌
These exciting developments highlight an unexciting but vital issue. Much of the key innovation required for the extension of solar applications is in the development of cheap and adaptable racking systems. When those systems develop, panels also get lighter for their output and panel production costs fall further agrivoltaics, solar canals, solar hydro, solar dams, roadside solar, solar fencing, commercial rooftops, carports and the rest will hopefully become a no brainer for those who own working land.
Here in the eastern USA we have a local lake that is plagued with algae blooms. I’ve often wondered how much of the lake would have to be covered by solar panels to mitigate its growth and if it would actually benefit the lake long term.
The algae blooms are because of nutrient pollution. Stop the pollution and the lakes would be teaming with life. Blocking the light would kill what life there is, including the blooms.
Might there be an aspect of receiving fertiliser rich runoff from local farms?
@@ChrisNotTheKing That wouldn’t be unusual, but the lake is natural and in a more wooded part of the state. I’ll have to look at it from the air, just out of curiosity. Alge hasn’t been a big problem that I’ve heard of in other lakes in the area.
We have a similar problem here in NZ with our hydro lakes, the weed has to be regularly harvested otherwise it blocks the generator intakes
Looks like there is a housing development close by, so it could be at least partly from lawn fertilizer I would think. (Lake Hopatcong NJ)
Thank you David, let us stop all the wasting in coordinated cooperation
Danke!
Thanks Dave.
The Gila River Tribe of Arizona are leading the way in the U.S. They also have led the way on "Water Compact" Law, across the Colorado River region [SW], for all the nation. California has a program developing in the Turlock [Central Valley] Water District.