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LENSES project at the 1st SUNNYSIDE Agri-Photovoltaic Conference held in March 2022

MIGAL, Galilee Research Institute, has been implementing innovative agri-photovoltaic (APV) solutions that do not interfere with the cultivation of crops and fruits in agricultural land of the Galilee. As Dr Yael Harman, head of R&D in the chief scientist’s office at Israel’s Ministry of Energy, said in an interview: “Solar energy will play a pivotal role in Israel’s decarbonization, but land scarcity is holding back its rollout. However, Israel has big plans for agrivoltaics:  150 MW of farm-based projects have been planned, that should serve as the country’s blueprint”.

In 2020, the Israeli government has committed to a target of 30% use of renewable energy by 2030. Today, the main technology for generating electricity from sustainable energy in Israel is photovoltaic (PV). Therefore, MIGAL organized “Sunnyside APV” on 1st March, 2022. The Conference was held as a hybrid event and saw the participation of 300 people.

Dr Moshe Meron presented in the conference the preliminary results from the work done in the Japanese palm orchards in Kibbutz Ayelet-HaShahar, where MIGAL has been working with farmers to examine the effects of the shading by the APV panels both on water used for irrigation and fruit quantitative and qualitative production. Since the land authority have not approve (yet) the installation of panels in orchards, researchers opted to imitate shade effects by installing plastic canvas between the rows.