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The French energy company says its 100kW agrovoltaic installation linked to cow farming in Frances Puy-de-Dôme region has not changed the functioning of the pastures or the behaviour of the animals.
Engie Green, a unit of French energy giant Engie, has been operating a vertical agrivoltaic demonstrator for two years at the National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRAE) facility in Laqueuille, in the Puy-de-Dôme department of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region in central France.
The choice of this photovoltaic technology was due to its production profile, since the solar power plant produces for a long period, from 5 in the morning to 8 in the evening, due to the vertical deployment of the panels.
Initial results have shown that by 2024, the energy produced by the 100 kW pilot plant, called Camélia, would have exceeded the production of a land-based plant of the same power by 30%.
In addition, Engie has also revealed agronomic data showing that the plant has entered its second year of agronomic monitoring and its first year of solar energy production.
Initial observations show that the presence of solar panels changes the microclimate of the meadow. Over several months, researchers measured a halving of wind speed without any significant change in direction. Over the course of a day, the solar installations temporarily change the light and temperature conditions on either side of the panels. “However, as not all the microclimatic data have yet been analysed, we will have to wait for another cycle to draw any relevant conclusions,” the company explains.
As regards plant biomass production, if it is not modified by the distance to the panels or the east-west orientation, the grassland in the 18-metre row is more productive than that in the 12-metre row. INRAE ??proposes several explanations: the intrinsic spatial variability of the plot, the presence of a little more grass and, potentially, a little more light at 18 metres than at 12 metres.
Finally, all animals in the Camelia plot were equipped with sensors to measure activities such as ingestion, rumination, resting and standing, as well as their position in the shade or in the light and their spatial position using GPS. During the first grazing cycle in May, in humid and cool conditions, the scientists observed that the animals spent approximately 1/3 of their time in the middle rows of the panels and 2/3 of their time around them.
Under warmer and slightly drier conditions, during the second grazing cycle in June-July, the animals spent somewhat more time in the shade of the trees located in the plot. Moreover, the presence of the panels does not seem to modify their activity, since the activity profiles were similar to those of the Camélia plot and to those of another plot used during the inter-grazing period. Once again, these first observations made on cattle should be deepened with a more complete set of data on the other grazing cycles studied. |
