The picture in the op doesn’t look like agrivoltaics though. Compared to the agrivoltaics examples of the wiki article, the panels in the op are more densely placed, placed flatter, and placed closer to the ground. Nothing is getting harvested there, the most they could do is keep rabbits under them. From what I’ve seen in person, the non agri kind with panels over monoculture grass fields is much more common than agrivoltaics with cultivated fields.
In the US it makes sense. Much of our corn is grown for ethanol so ot can be used for fuel. Replace that with solar and we reduce our reliance on a monocrop and end up with far far more power.
They also use lots of irrigation from aquifers in the Great Plains, so they’ll need less irrigation and the shading will help a tiny bit with replenishing the aquifer.
In northern Europe these solar fields make no sense at all to me though. When I see something like the fields below in my temperate marine climate, then I can’t help but think of the forest that could have been there.
Turning it back into a forest will never happen when the land owner needs to pay taxes on the land and thus need to make income of the land. These solar fields are usual on private property. Not public land. Either they put windmills and solar on the fields or they raise cattle or grow crops. Which one is better for the environment overall?
If you destroy existing forest to make a farm, maybe. But if it’s an empty field and you want to do something with it, making it into a forest makes little sense. It’s complicated, very expensive, and doesn’t do much. Just let natural forests do their things, allow them to expand if you want more forests, don’t make one from scratch.
The picture in the op doesn’t look like agrivoltaics though. Compared to the agrivoltaics examples of the wiki article, the panels in the op are more densely placed, placed flatter, and placed closer to the ground. Nothing is getting harvested there, the most they could do is keep rabbits under them. From what I’ve seen in person, the non agri kind with panels over monoculture grass fields is much more common than agrivoltaics with cultivated fields.
In the US it makes sense. Much of our corn is grown for ethanol so ot can be used for fuel. Replace that with solar and we reduce our reliance on a monocrop and end up with far far more power.
They also use lots of irrigation from aquifers in the Great Plains, so they’ll need less irrigation and the shading will help a tiny bit with replenishing the aquifer.
In northern Europe these solar fields make no sense at all to me though. When I see something like the fields below in my temperate marine climate, then I can’t help but think of the forest that could have been there.
Turning it back into a forest will never happen when the land owner needs to pay taxes on the land and thus need to make income of the land. These solar fields are usual on private property. Not public land. Either they put windmills and solar on the fields or they raise cattle or grow crops. Which one is better for the environment overall?
If you destroy existing forest to make a farm, maybe. But if it’s an empty field and you want to do something with it, making it into a forest makes little sense. It’s complicated, very expensive, and doesn’t do much. Just let natural forests do their things, allow them to expand if you want more forests, don’t make one from scratch.