The Brouchy Agrivoltaic Canopy - An acceleration toward energy transition

Introduction

The Brouchy project will be an innovative agrivoltaic canopy to answer the critical dual need of the agricultural and energy sectors. The project aims to enhance agricultural production and develop new renewable energy capacities. Its breakthrough technical feature is a 5-metre-high shade house structure on steel cables, held in place by poles with a width of 27 metres, making it suitable for large field crops. The canopy’s versatility will expand the market potential of agrivoltaics at a large scale, contributing to the decarbonisation of the energy mix and improving food security as it delivers 100% relative greenhouse gas emission reduction compared to the reference scenario.

Challenges and Innovations

Due to size limitations, existing agrivoltaic solutions only target market gardening, viticulture, arboriculture, or livestock. For the canopy targeting large field crops, technical structural resistance was the biggest challenge for this wide cable structure. The project’s innovative characteristics include:

• Independent control of each row of photovoltaic panels, which limits the effects of wind vibrations.
• A 2.9 megawatt-peak (MWp) canopy with a steel structure lighter than existing solutions and a limited ground footprint.

With a height of 5 metres and a width of 27 metres, the system allows the normal working habits of the farmers to continue, including the use of any agricultural machinery. The project aims to avoid 6,982 tonnes of CO2 equivalent of greenhouse gas emissions during the first 10 years of operation.

Compatibility and Flexibility

A large range of plant species is compatible with the set-up, and the innovative technology can be adapted to offer more flexibility to the farmer’s field management. Using a significant number of sensors, an automatic computer-controlled system will allow the state-of-the-art panels to be oriented according to weather forecasts. This will allow the system to meet the specific needs of the crops whilst optimising energy production.

Climate Resilience and Irrigation

Thanks to the partial and rotating shade that is provided by the canopy, the shading system will help to protect the crops against climate change and to reduce thermal, hydric, and cold stress. The decrease in temperature resulting from the canopy will have a positive effect on photosynthetic activity. The objectives of the project are to:

1. Quantify and analyse the improved plant yield and food quality.
2. Decrease the need for irrigation.

The canopy can also be equipped with an intelligent irrigation system to address a major challenge of water availability by providing optimal irrigation when necessary. The use of a tracking system with bifacial modules (capable of absorbing sunlight from the front and back) combined with the albedo effect (the ability of surfaces to reflect sunlight) will optimise the energy yield of the panels.

Economic and Environmental Impact

The project aims to create a new versatile solution that enables the development of the emerging agrivoltaics market on a large scale. Developing new renewable energy sources such as these will contribute to the decarbonisation of the European energy mix, which is currently dependent on fossil fuels.

The project will bring direct economic benefits to farmers through improved profitability and additional revenue, and to the communities through taxation. Finally, biodiversity is at the heart of the project, and the canopy has been designed to ensure landscape integration in harmony with the environment and local species with multi-layered hedges.