Featured in Batteries to center stage – 02-2021

Solar’s flexibility can be agriculture’s gain

Both solar and the farming industry are beginning to see potential in the combined use of land for food production and energy generation. And as innovators begin to experiment with different forms, it’s becoming clear that in most cases it is solar that will have to bend to the needs of agriculture, and not the other way around, to ensure a positive outcome.

By

Mark Hutchins

11 Feb 2021

Image: Fraunhofer ISE

Solar’s voracious appetite for land means that as installations continue to grow, the industry will increasingly come into conflict with other important concerns, in particular agriculture. Coupled with warnings that a holistic approach to the global food-energy-water nexus is needed to prevent shortages of any of the three, finding a way to play nicely with …

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