Agrivoltaics in Skåne
Project overview
Participants
More related research
Short summary
Agrivoltaics means producing both food and electricity using solar cells on the same arable land. Benefits include increased income per hectare, better water management and increased biodiversity.
The Department of Biosystems and Technology is participating in the project “Solbruk i Skåne”. Region Skåne is the project owner and other project partners are the County Administrative Board of Skåne, Energikontor Syd, Mälardalen University and the research institute RISE. Other participating actors are the Swedish Farmers' Association, the sugar industry's research institute Nordic Beet Research and the solar energy companies SolarEdge and Alight.
The project's total budget is approximately SEK 20 million, of which approximately SEK 8 million is financed by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). The remaining SEK 12 million is financed by the project organizations, of which approximately SEK 8.6 million is from Region Skåne. The project runs from September 1, 2023 to December 31, 2027.
The goals of the project are:
- To gain knowledge about which crops are suitable for growing in combination with solar cell systems and how these should be designed to function in the farmer's everyday production.
- To gain knowledge about how the economy and production of electricity and crops will be in a solar farming system, compared to traditional farming and conventional solar cell systems on land.
- To gain knowledge about how national and international policies, regulations and support systems for both solar power plants and agriculture affect the possibilities for permits and profitable business models.
SLU's podcast "Feeding your mind - a podcast about the food of the future" has published an episode about how food and solar electricity can be produced on the same land. Several people from the Solbruk i Skåne project participate in the program, which provides both an introduction to the area and an in-depth analysis of opportunities, current obstacles and ways forward. Avsnitt 34. Skörd av både grödor och solel - om framtiden för agrivoltaiska system av podcasten av Feeding Your Mind – en podcast om framtidens mat (In Swedish).
More information about the project can be found on Region Skåne's website: Solbruk - Utveckling Skåne.
