Solar panels and crops could meet 68% of central Europe’s power demand
www.euronews.com
Combining farming with green energy production could also increase food security and generate additional income for farmers, according to a new study.

Addition for the study: Empowering farmers in Central Europe: the case for agri-PV – (archived link)

Deploying solar panels and growing crops on the same land could be a solution to boost renewable electricity in Czechia, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia, reaching the equivalent of 68% of today’s energy demand in the countries, according to new research.

A study by energy think tank Ember posits that combining electricity and crop production, a practice dubbed agri-PV, on just 9% of farmland could meet the electricity needs of agriculture and food processing in the region.

The UK-based NGO suggests that 180GW of solar panels could be installed on crops across the central European countries – triple the targeted capacity by 2030 set out in draft national energy plans, and seven times more than the total installed capacity across the countries at present.

Boasting 19% of the EU’s arable land, the so-called Visegrad 4 countries produce a disproportionately large amount of staple crops such as wheat, oats and rye, production that Ember notes could be imperiled by volatile fertilizer prices, recurrent droughts and extreme weather events.