A farm in Bavaria is covering its hops with solar panels, providing electricity to 250 households and shading the plants from the increasingly scorching summer heat in the process.
  • Kempeth@feddit.deEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    I am really excited about these applications. There’s a significant pushback in my country - Switzerland - against renewables under the argument of “where are we gonna put all this energy generation?”. If we can hold up “over agricultural land” as an answer that not only offers huge swaths of land but is also beneficial for the agriculture that’ll be a huge win. If you can show a farmer here, that he’ll get better yields for less water AND can sell the electricity on top of it, he’ll do it no matter how much his party is ranting against renewables.

    Obviously we’ll need to figure out which plants benefit from the shade and which don’t. So I’m glad this has already started.

  • sparkl_motion@beehaw.orgEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    I really wish they’d do something like this in my home state. WA is one of the largest growers of hops in the world, and the eastern half of the state is a highlands desert that gets major sun throughout the year.