TotalEnergies commissions vertical agrivoltaic demonstrator in northeastern France

From pv magazine France.

French energy giant TotalEnergies has energized, last week, a 240 kW agrivoltaic demonstrator plant in Channay, in the Côte-d'Or department of the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region of northeastern France.

The project was developed with the support of German start-up Next2Sun Mounting Systems, with which TotalEnergies signed an exclusive partnership agreement in March 2020.

The demonstrator integrates Next2sun mounting structure technology for bifacial vertical panels and the solar modules for the project were provided by Russian heterojunction panel maker Hevel Solar. According to the project developers, this configuration provides maximum performance at peak times, at dawn and dusk, while stabilizing the network.

“Our partnership with Next2Sun is finally materializing through this demonstrator,” said Thierry Muller, managing director of TotalEnergies Renouvelables France. “We are very enthusiastic about the idea of implementing these innovative solutions, developed with our partner InVivo, which combine agricultural production and renewable electricity.”

The small solar park benefited from crowdfunding to the tune of €50,000, 42% of which was collected from residents of the municipalities of Channay and Nicey. TotalEnergies have joined forces with specialists by forming a working group bringing together the Chamber of Agriculture of Côte d'Or, the local cooperative Dijon Céréales, the agronomic study office Agrosolutions, and a subsidiary of InVivo, as well as agroecology innovation center AgrOnov.

The French energy company will also carry out environmental monitoring studies with its environmental studies and expertise center (P3E) and its Lacq Study and Research Center (PERL). These tests and analysis carried out on this pilot project will allow the group and its partners to benefit from experience feedback to develop more agrivoltaic projects.