<
https://grist.org/energy/why-egyptian-farmers-are-growing-crops-under-solar-panels/>
"Ancient Egyptian civilization blossomed in the scorching desert thanks to the
Nile River, which delivered fresh water and annual dumps of nutrient-rich
sediment. Clever engineering moved H₂O so efficiently that farmers were able to
churn out huge surpluses of staple crops like wheat, which fed the Roman
Empire.
Thousands of years later, the African nation’s farmers — like so many others
around the world — are grappling with water shortages and ever-fiercer
temperatures, which threaten to wilt their crops. So like their ancestors
before them, they’re innovating, this time with a burgeoning technique known as
agrivoltaics: By covering fields with solar panels, farmers generate clean
electricity and shade crops, reducing evaporation and mitigating heat stress.
Two pilot projects in Egypt — from a variety of funders and partnering
organizations — are testing how the technology might fare in small farming
communities and on a larger scale in the country. “There is no perfect
guideline on how to get there, so I imagine many projects like ours will be
trying out different things,” said Gofran Chowdhury, head of innovation at the
renewable energy company 3E, one of the partners in the campaign.
Researchers around the world are finding that instead of solar panels stopping
plants from flourishing, what with all that shade, they can supercharge growth.
Many plants evolved to grow in the dappled light of the forest floor, for
instance, and struggle under full sun. The partner groups and farmers in Egypt
are experimenting with different arrangements of panels, like a checkerboard,
as shown above. This doesn’t generate as much electricity as a sprawling solar
farm, with row after row of solid panels with few gaps, but it lets more
sunlight reach the crops.
At the same time, the panels’ shade reduces water loss from the soil. Other
researchers in the deserts of Nevada have found that this hydrological
protection helps a rare plant there thrive. And up in Colorado, scientists are
growing crops on rooftops under panels, finding that this uses a third as much
water than if the plants weren’t shaded. (Agrivoltaics also provides relief
from the relentless amount of sun on a rooftop, and shields the plants from
high winds up there.) They’re also experimenting with transparent solar panels,
which let light through while still producing power.
Really, every crop is going to have different needs, hence the variety of
projects in Egypt and beyond. Early results from experiments are promising: On
those Colorado rooftops, cucumbers are growing to the size of baseball bats.
Not that anyone is going to force Egyptian farmers to grow cucumbers — they’ll
keep cultivating what they’ve always cultivated. “We want to adapt and see what
is the community doing right now,” Chowdhury said, “and trying to see if we can
support them with that adaptation.” All the while, the program’s organizers
will collect data on the performance of plants and panels, which will inform
how to deploy agrivoltaics elsewhere."
Via Susan ****
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
