Webinar on Business Opportunities for AgroPV in India – Learnings from Europe and India

 

Harvesting crops and solar energy on shared land offers a promising solution for India's land and water scarcity. Agrophotovoltaics (AgroPV) allows the dual use of land by combining solar power generation with farming. Thereby, valuable resources such as water can be conserved by reusing it for both purposes. Researchers across the world are increasingly drawn to the auspicious technology. By now, many farmers around the globe are already cultivating their land successfully under solar panels and report even higher yields. 

Together with the Indian solar association National Solar Energy Federation of India (NSEFI), the Indo-German Energy Forum (IGEF-SO) organised a webinar on "Business opportunities for AgroPV in India - Learnings from Europe and India" on May 22, 2020. On this occasion, the study on "Feasibility and Economic Viability of Horticulture Photovoltaics", financed by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) through KfW, was digitally published.

Mr. Sinha, Joint Secretary of the  Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) and Chairman of IGEF Subgroup II, opened the event. In his keynote address on the Vision for Photovoltaics on Agriculture, he elucidated the National PM Kusum Scheme, which focuses on the energy needs of farmers, income of farmers, environment protection and water conservation and allows the installation of solar PV on agriculture. “On the basis of this scheme, various state governments across India are coming up with their own models that target solar PV use on agriculture in a big way”, he said, pointing to a promising future for AgroPV in India. 

Over 170 participants gained insights on the opportunities and challenges of dual and resource-efficient land use for solar power generation and agriculture through presentations by Mr. Trommsdorff, Fraunhofer ISE, Mr. Krause-Tünker, Next2Sun, Dr. Santra, Central Arid Zone Research Institute and Mr. Winter, IGEF-SO. Furthermore, current R&D results on existing AgroPV plants worldwide, on water harvesting systems for AgroPV plants in India and on vertical AgroPV plants in Europe were presented and discussed in the webinar.

You can find the recording of the Webinar on YouTube. Please follow the link

For more information on the topic please write to agropv(at)energyforum.in

 

 

#AgriPV #Agrophotovoltaics

IN