In 2023, world leaders pledged to triple global renewable energy capacity by the end of this decade at the COP28 climate conference in Dubai. Meeting this goal will require an unprecedented buildout of renewable energy projects, both in speed and in scale. And all of those projects are going to require a whole lot of land, presenting serious challenges for land use strategies.

The kind of utility-scale solar and wind farms that will be necessary to meet internationally binding climate goals require huge amounts of undeveloped land. “Utility-scale solar and wind farms require at least ten times as much space per unit of power as coal- or natural gas–fired power plants, including the land used to produce and transport the fossil fuels,” says a 2022 report from global consulting powerhouse McKinsey & Company. “Wind turbines are often placed half a mile apart, while large solar farms span thousands of acres.”

And, while the vast land tracts that these projects are targeting are undeveloped, it doesn’t mean that they are unused or unpopulated. “These developments often intersect with agricultural zones, conservation areas and Indigenous territories,” explains Renewable Energy Magazine in an article released earlier this year. Plus, the rural areas that have the most undeveloped land are often the most resistant to large-scale renewable energy projects, leading to tense political flare-ups and litigious gridlock that can keep projects tied up in court for years.

Finding land-use agreements that allow for mixed-use plots will be essential to achieving the renewable energy buildout we need without compromising agricultural production, rural livelihoods, and food security. Some farmers have rented out their land to solar developers, but this practice can be risky, with grave consequences for the topsoil. Solar farms, if they clear the land of all vegetation, can create prime conditions for erosion, making that land unsuitable for agriculture more or less permanently. “The reality is that it takes thousands of years to create an inch of fertile topsoil,” warns National Geographic, “but it can be destroyed in minutes.”

But marrying solar power and agriculture on the same land at the same time could provide a win-win for both sectors. The practice, called agrivoltaics, is not a new concept, but it hasn’t reached a commercial scale since its conception in the 1980s. Figuring out how to provide solar panels and crops with optimal sunlight on the same land is not so simple. “A pressing question is how AV technology can maximize crop productivity and energy generation while minimizing plant water loss and irrigation needs,” Phys.org wrote in a 2023 report. “That’s a lot to ask for on a piece of land.”

But a new pilot project in Denmark seems to have cracked the code. Researchers from Aarhus University have developed a full-scale solar plant that uses vertically mounted solar panels for optimal output for solar energy and crops alike. “Our measurements show that wheat and grass-clover mixtures grow just as well between vertical solar panels as in open fields. At the same time, the panels produce electricity in a daily pattern that better matches energy demand. It’s a win-win,” Marta Victoria, lead author of the study and Associate Professor at the Department of Mechanical and Production Engineering, Aarhus University, told Tech Xplore.

Critically, the solar panels only took up about 10% of the land, allowing for successful metrics from both the agricultural and the photovoltaic sides of the agrivoltaic model. The study, recently published in the scientific journal Energy Nexus, yielded excellent results in full sun as well as with conditions of some shade. “Even with some shade, the yield per square meter is almost the same. The crops don’t seem to mind the presence of solar panels and they like the wind protection that they provide,” explains Professor Uffe Jørgensen from the Department of Agroecology.

By Haley Zaremba for Oilprice.com

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