Agrivoltaics describes a process for the simultaneous use of agricultural land for food production and PV power generation. The technology enables the efficient dual use of agricultural land: photovoltaics on open spaces can be substantially expanded without significantly using up valuable resources of fertile arable land. Targeted light management optimizes the yields from PV and photosynthesis. In addition, value creation in the region and rural development are promoted, as agrivoltaic projects are ideally suited to be supported in a decentralized by farmers, municipalities and small and medium-sized enterprises. This results in new, economically viable farming options for agriculture.
We are working on the implementation and further development of agrivoltaics in industrial and research projects.
Opportunities in Agrivoltaics.
Agrivoltaics offers great opportunities for agriculture and climate protection. In their foreword, the two Federal Ministers Anja Karliczek and Julia Klöckner support the promising concept of combining agricultural production and renewable electricity generation on the same land.
The guideline provides information on the possibilities and advantages of agrivoltaics, offers an overview of its potential and the current state of technology, and presents practical advice for agriculture businesses, municipalities and companies.
Aside from more efficient land use, agrivoltaics can help reduce water consumption in agriculture, generate stable additional sources of income for farms, and make many farms more resilient against harvest losses. The early involvement of local citizens is a key criterion for success in the concrete implementation of agrivoltaics. https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/en/publications/studies/agrivo…ition.html
Some species of termites are known to cultivate their own crops of fungus within their nests, similar to the way humans maintain farms to feed people. One such species is Odontotermes obesus, which cultivates the fungus Termitomyces. The relationship between these termites and the fungus can be thought of as a sort of symbiotic one. In this case, Termitomyces feeds the termites, and the termites protect the fungus from an invasive “weed-like” fungus called Pseudoxylaria can quickly overrun Termitomyces if left to its own devices.
A new study, published in Science, sheds some light on the methods these insects use to protect their crops, which was previously unclear. The research team investigated these methods through a series of experiments in which Pseudoxylaria was introduced into the termite’s crop of Termitomyces combs.
In the first part of the experiment, only a small amount of weed fungus was placed on a comb, and the termites’ responses were observed and compared to the response to an uninfected comb. Then, a highly infected comb was introduced next to a healthy comb, and termite responses were observed. Finally, the team attached a healthy comb to an infected comb to find out how the termites responded. Then, the soil boluses, which were used by the termites to cover certain pieces of comb, were analyzed for microbial content and fungistatic properties using sequencing and inhibition assays.
Global electricity use is increasing rapidly and must be addressed sustainably. Developing new materials could give us much more efficient solar cell materials than at present; materials so thin and flexible that they could encase anything from mobile phones or entire buildings.
Using computer simulation and machine learning, researchers at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden have now taken an important step toward understanding and handling halide perovskites, among the most promising but notoriously enigmatic materials.
Electricity use is constantly increasing globally and, according to the International Energy Agency, its proportion of the world’s total energy consumption is expected to exceed 50% in 25 years, compared to the current 20%.
With the surging popularity for electric vehicles (EVs), rapid charging is a challenge as it requires power delivery exceeding 1 MW (which can power about 1,000 homes). Conventional charging stations rely on bulky line frequency transformers (LFTs), which are expensive due to extensive use of copper and iron. These stations also have multiple conversion stages involving stepping up or down current, or converting AC to DC and vice versa. This can greatly increase cost and reduce efficiency.
To solve this problem, researchers at the Department of Electrical Engineering (EE), Indian Institute of Science (IISc), in collaboration with Delta Electronics India, have developed a novel cascaded H-bridge (CHB)-based multiport DC converter that directly connects to the medium-voltage AC (MVAC) electricity grid. This eliminates the need for large and expensive LFTs.
Published in IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics, the study shows that such converters can help address the growing power demands of fast-charging EV stations, crucial for scaling up India’s EV infrastructure.
A new type of catalyst—a material that speeds up chemical reactions—that could make the production of clean hydrogen fuel more efficient and long-lasting has been developed by a team led by City University of Hong Kong, including researchers from Hong Kong, mainland China, and Japan.
This breakthrough uses high-density single atoms of iridium (a rare metal) to greatly improve the process of splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen, which is key to renewable energy technologies like hydrogen fuel cells and large-scale energy storage.
The researchers created a highly stable and active catalyst by placing single iridium atoms on ultra-thin sheets made of cobalt and cerium compounds. Called CoCe–O–IrSA, the final product performs exceptionally well in the water-splitting process. It requires very little extra energy (just 187 mV of overpotential at 100 mA cm-2) to drive the oxygen evolution reaction at a high rate, and it stays stable for more than 1,000 hours under demanding conditions.
Researchers at the University of Gothenburg have made light-powered gears on a micrometer scale. This paves the way for the smallest on-chip motors in history, which can fit inside a strand of hair. The research is published in the journal Nature Communications.
Gears are everywhere—from clocks and cars to robots and wind turbines. For more than 30 years, researchers have been trying to create even smaller gears in order to construct micro-engines. But progress stalled at 0.1 millimeters, as it was not possible to build the drive trains needed to make them move any smaller.
Researchers from Gothenburg University, among others, have now broken through this barrier by ditching traditional mechanical drive trains and instead using laser light to set the gears in motion directly.
Scientists have uncovered a surprising advantage in next-generation solar technology—the hotter it gets, the better it can store energy. Traditionally, heat has been seen as the enemy of solar power. Standard solar panels lose efficiency as temperatures rise.
But a new study, published in The Journal of Chemical Physics, shows that in special “solar-plus-storage” devices, heat can actually boost performance by speeding up the internal chemical reactions that store energy.
The team studied photoelectrochemical (PEC) flow cells—an emerging technology that combines the sunlight-harvesting ability of a solar panel with the storage power of a battery.