Solar energy has found its applications in electricity for widely for homes, offices, factories, schools, and other institutions. Limited traditional fossil-based fuels such as crude oil, gas or coal due they take millions of years to be produced by geological factors. However, solar energy as a renewable source, does not deplete unlike traditional sources.
Transitioning to renewables has opened the door to a myriad of interesting possibilities, where the use of engineering adapted to local conditions have created new ways for efficient land use as well as coexistence in their purposes such as the case of Agro-PV Sector.
According to International Energy Agency (IEA) the demand for solar panel installations globally has been widely acknowledged to be increasing from 306.5 GWp to 1185 GWp (estimated) in 2016 to 2022 respectively; with an annual accumulative growth nearly 24% and interesting payback which commonly can be achieved 3-5 years since their construction.
Over time, solar energy has been implemented in more different sectors. Additionally, solar energy has become an energy supplement in daily living, agriculture, and transportation. Particular activities that can benefit from photovoltaics include solar drying, water pumping, and refrigeration for food preservation. As well as photovoltaic energy can power agricultural operations, lights, and electric fences.
Eco Green Energy highlighted the essential advantages of solar energy for your agro-business.
Benefits from solar energy
Yes, it is. But before starting this question, let’s observe the general situation. Rural areas depend on agriculture and need to access electricity to make a sustainable living. Since farming and agriculture consume a large amount of electricity for irrigation, plowing, greenhouses, heating, and cooling of buildings that house livestock, and dairy operations, utility bills can drain the budget.
According to estimations from EIA, agricultural energy consumption includes both direct and indirect energy consumption. Direct energy consumption includes the use of diesel, electricity, propane, natural gas, and renewable fuels for activities on the farm. Indirect energy consumption includes the use of fuel and feedstock. Generally, alarming is to understand the distribution of type energy sources in crops and livestock nearly requires 250Btu and 150Btu of distillated fuels respectively.
It is also significant to include possible vulnerable factors that affect the agro-industry:
- Sudden changes in fossil fuel supply and price affects food prices.
- With the growing energy intensity of agriculture, rising energy prices translate into higher costs of production, processing, and transport. It could mean higher costs for consumers.
- Covid-19 has made charcoal and LPG scarcer and more expensive in countries such as Kenya (World Bank, 2021).
With solar power, while the upfront cost may be high, farmers will benefit for a long time.
COST-EFFECTIVE ENERGY INDEPENDENCY
OFF-GRID or ON-GRID offer an increasingly cost-effective alternative to fossil fuels, one with the added benefits of reducing environmental impact, promoting decentralized processing infrastructure, and reducing labor-intensive processing activities.
FOOD SECURITY & RESILIENCE
Solar Energy allows ensuring food systems are built on secure, environmentally sustainable, and resilient foundations.
ADAPTATION
Increase the adaptive capacity of farmers and agri-enterprises.
IMPROVEMENT
Many people widely adopt Solar irrigation, among the most mature applications, to improve access to water, thus enabling multiple cropping cycles and increasing resilience to changing rainfall patterns.
Our Agro-Solar Projects Snapshot
Our Company is proud to be a part of agro projects and provide them with high-efficient PV modules that can bring benefits in the long term thanks to the strong collaboration with our extended global distributor network.
Here is the solar on-grid plant with a capacity of 56.1 kW in Colombia. In addition, our distributor used 102 EGE brand Atlas 550W PV modules with Gallium-dopped technology for Lemon irrigation. Now, lemons will grow in total purity and clean energy.
This is a PV project, a solar water pump, located in Morocco. The solar installation provides clean energy for the water pump system to supply water for irrigation. In fact, solar water pumps promote saving costs and minimize the dependence on electricity. Additionally, they are also environmentally friendly and without any emission production.
More than 300KW of the solar project was installed in different areas of the Ecuadorian coast for use in the aquaculture industry for AQ1 automatic feeding systems based on the sound of shrimp chewing. The shrimp production chain is of high economic, social and environmental importance for Ecuador.
Moreover, automatic feeders on solar energy have improved the health of the cultured shrimp by providing food more efficiently and with less impact on pond bottoms.
Do you want to know more about the benefits of agro-business? Do not hesitate and join our webinar based on this topic. We will discuss how solar energy can improve your business and also how to find the correct funding for your projects.
Date : 20th April 2022
Link for Registration: https://forms.gle/9sb2M7EuCwCKrbFK6
