• Jumpingspiderman@lemm.eeEnglish
    48·
    1 month ago

    Not all agriculture is done in full sun. Ginseng, coffee and other important crops do best in shade. And you can put the panels up on grazing land. The critters often appreciate the shade which approximates a savanna environment.

    • Fried_out_Kombi@lemmy.worldEnglish
      34·
      1 month ago

      And things like vertical bifacial solar panels can work especially amazingly on grazing land that isn’t suitable for crops.

      Counter-intuitive as they may look, they actually have a number of benefits:

      1. The panels face east and west, meaning they generate peak power in the morning and evening, which corresponds to peak demand => less need for energy storage to bridge the gap between the mid-day peak in production from traditional PV and the aforementioned morning and evening demand peaks.
      2. The panels are vertical, which makes them easier and cheaper to maintain, as dust, snow, and rain naturally shed from their surfaces.
      3. The panels get less direct energy during mid-day, keeping their surfaces cooler. Turns out cooler solar panels are more efficient at converting light energy into electrical energy.
      4. The arrangement lends itself very naturally to agrivoltaics, which means you can derive more yields from a given piece of land and use less land overall than if you had segregated uses.
      5. The compatibility with agrivoltaics allows farmers to diversify their incomes streams and/or become energy self-sufficient.