Ep. 609: Marrying Solar and Agriculture
Guest: Omri Haiven (Clean Energy Research Group)
“We’re sitting on a golden opportunity to marry photo voltaic technology –i n other words, solar panels with agriculture in [British Columbia],” says Omri Haiven, a researcher at the Clean Energy Research Group at Simon Fraser University. Haiven goes on to say, “We have two perfect locations in BC to grow food and produce energy, one on top of the other.”
Haiven is referring to agrivoltaics, the combination of solar energy generation with agricultural practices. This method creates high land use efficiency enabling farmers to harvest crops and generate solar electricity simultaneously on the same plot of land, rather than treating the two as competing interests. In fact, says Haiven, the solar panels aid the plants in increased yields and protection from threats.
Haiven says, “Plants often reach a saturation point for sunlight when exposed to long periods of intense sunlight and they use a significant amount of the energy from the sun to protect themselves from the sun… By adding photovoltaic structures over the fields, farmers can avoid stressing the crops while maintaining or even increasing harvest yields.”
We invited Omri Haiven of the Clean Energy Research Group to join us for a Conversation That Matters about the potential agrivoltaics offers to farmers.
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