Solar panels produce clean, renewable energy without emitting any planet-overheating air pollution, which means that hopefully we're going to be seeing a lot more of them in the coming years. But one drawback of solar panels is that they can take up a lot of space.
Luckily, the burgeoning field of agrivoltaics is taking that drawback and turning it into a positive — as one agrivoltaics pilot program in France recently displayed, PV Magazine reported.
Agrivoltaics refers to the practice of using the shade provided by solar panels in conjunction with farming. Instead of replacing farmland with solar arrays, agrivoltaics allows farmers to continue earning money via farming while also earning money from leasing that land to solar companies.
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Some examples include using the shaded area under solar panels to allow sheep to graze or to focus on growing crops that can thrive without direct sunlight.
In France, of course, the experiment involved growing grapes for winemaking. French agrivoltaics company Sun'Agri launched two pilot programs in the south of France — in Domaine de Nidolères in the Pyrénées-Orientales — in 2024 and reported that not only were the grapes able to grow under solar panels but that the experiment also actually increased yields.
The yield of Chardonnay grapes increased by 60%, followed by Marselan at 30% and Grenache blanc at 20%.
Sun'Agri said that growing grapes under solar panel shade allowed it to optimize the process by controlling temperatures while also increasing humidity and decreasing irrigation needs. The panels also helped to protect against frost.
One unintended side effect of the experiment was that it produced wine with 1.5% less alcohol, which could be a benefit or a drawback depending on your perspective.
Ultimately, more solar power and more wine sounds like a pretty good result for this pilot program. Hopefully, the success of this experiment encourages more farmers to lean into agrivoltaics as a way to optimize the resources at their disposal while helping to facilitate the transition away from dirty energy.
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