5 ms·

My brothers farm had an offer by a similar startup with different dimensions but basically the same idea. Had problems though. First was moving parts. You can

My brothers farm had an offer by a similar startup with different dimensions but basically the same idea. Had problems though. First was moving parts. You can not expect a system to last outside with any in them. Budget for the whole affair is tight, large repairs undo the whole endeavour . Second is crops riping at different speeds below. Finally practicality of the frame for farming machines . Meaning the dimensions need to adapt to pre-existing machines. And ideally remain upright even if one post gets hit. Finally honesty regarding erosion ..corn is one of the more erosion prone crops and then having water dumped on specific areas concentrated creates channels fast. So the idea does not work with no crops or erosion crops in rainy areas. There is a reason there is grass below most solar fields. One good aspect they didn't push is that this is ideal for electro farming. We have hyper effective electric moisture traps now and electro nitrogen fixing- combine that and this can remove one need for driving trucks through. In all other aspects i see this limited to orchards.

otherme123 2y ago
> In all other aspects i see this limited to orchards. This study is for a very specific region: East Africa (Kenia and Tanzania). Their main problems are too much evaporation, no energy sources, no other sources of food. I don't see how a solution that might work for a good share of humanity (Africa is huge: Kenya and Tanzania alone have 150 million people) gets dismissed as "limited to orchards" because it can't be used for industrial scale corn crops in my country.
- rob74 2y ago
  Well, unfortunately "Africa" is only mentioned in the article's title (which got cut to fit into HN's character limit) and not repeated in the article itself. But I can understand the concern: most agriculture (not only corn) is highly mechanized pretty much everywhere in the world except the poorest countries, so this would be limited to the crops that can't be mechanized.
  - otherme123 2y ago
    Or this can be adapted to mechanized crops where it makes sense. Greenhouses where small fragile minihouses of 4x3 meters, made of wood and glass 100 years ago, used only in countries with harsh winters. Nobody in their right mind would use a tractor to work on them. Today they can be seen from the space and are mechanized... where it makes sense to do it. They turned a desert into a huge production of fresh vegetables: https://www.amusingplanet.com/2013/08/the-greenhouses-of-almeria.html https://www.amusingplanet.com/2013/08/the-greenhouses-of-alm... . Agrivoltaics could be something or nothing. But don't dismiss it because it today isn't already perfect for everything. Ten years ago the cost of the panels alone would make this projects 100% infeasible.
    - rob74 2y ago
      Those plastic-foil greenhouses spreading like cancer across the landscape in Spain should be shown (especially up close, where you can better see the dirty tattered foil and the waste they produce) to people who think solar panels or wind turbines are eyesores. I would definitely support replacing those cheapo greenhouses with something more permanent involving solar panels!
    - ashoeafoot 2y ago
      I wouldn't sum up the challenges if i would be completely dismissive , i think the potential is there, especially when it comes to in situ fertilizer nitrogenfixing and electro moisture harvesting (the breakthroughs there are insane, from peltier 50ml to condensator 500 ml recently). This is not a attack on the idea, just a lets strengthen this to solve alot of problems .
Lutger 2y ago
Vertical bifacial agrivoltaics system are a promising setup that addresses some of your concerns. Most importantly, tractors can easily pass through them. Another good setup is to combine it while grazing sheep.
- lostlogin 2y ago
  A problem with sheep is that they aren’t worth anything. Here is New Zealand we have replaced nearly all of them with cows. Much improved profits but destruction of the waterways. We call that a win.
  - the_sleaze_ 2y ago
    Hot take: compress them all cheek to cheek in a warehouse, feed them corn and capture the methane they produce. Cover the roof in solar. Call that an even bigger win...
  - Lutger 2y ago
    Good point. I'm not really interested in farming animals, I really don't know enough about it. In the Netherlands we still slaughter little under a million of them per year, on a populations of circa 17 million that should still mean they are worth something. But maybe grazing isn't worth anything at all and its only cost-effective if you put them in a big box and feed them grains or something. I don't know.
tomrod 2y ago
Or hayfields.
- pfdietz 2y ago
  Here in the US, a field of hay might gross $500/acre/year. A PV field selling power at $0.02/kWh would gross 50x that. You'd optimize such a setup for PV, not for combined PV + hay.
  - tomrod 2y ago
    Aye, the question I answered wasn't focused on optimal layout, but potentially compatible crops.
cmrdporcupine 2y ago
Definitely doesn't seem appropriate for cash crops harvested by combine harvester. Most orchards and vineyards in temperate climates are attempting to maximize solar exposure, so would compete for space with the panels -- and also have their own trellising systems and so I struggle to see a fit there, too. But I can definitely see the use cases for two places. Grazing land for some ruminants, especially in hot dry climates. Provide shelter for animals, and shade for grasses. Vegetables, market garden or even large scale. (e.g. my neighbour grows something like 20 acres of cauliflower and it's all planted and picked by hand.) Many market gardens are using walk-behind / two-wheel tractors (BCS, etc.) which are far more agile and could easily handle moving around panels. Spill-off / erosion can be dealt with through building swales.
- eldaisfish 2y ago
  that's ok. Not every solution must work for all situations. the point here is that agrivoltaics tends to work well, especially in certain conditions. In central Africa, those conditions are reducing evaporation and providing shade to certain plants. In north america, those conditions are often sheep grazing, as is common in New York and Ontario.
  - cmrdporcupine 2y ago
    Aside: There seems to be an uptick in sheep rearing in my area (southern Ontario, near Hamilton) all the sudden. In the last year, I've seen 3 farms local to me put up fencing to start grazing them. Which is interesting because it's actually very difficult to find Ontario lamb in the butcher shop, and it's not a very popular meat overall, so I'm wondering where the source of the demand is. The majority of the lamb in the local grocery stores is either frozen prepacked from New Zealand, or from Sun Gold foods in Alberta. But I find local lamb from this area tastes much better (less gamey), must be something about the grass vs whatever forage they're giving them in Alberta. My two border collies would love it if I raised sheep. But my quasi-vegetarian wife could never tolerate raising them for meat.. and dairy and wool make no $$ sense.
    - 2y ago
lurk2 2y ago
> One good aspect they didn't push is that this is ideal for electro farming. We have hyper effective electric moisture traps now and electro nitrogen fixing- combine that and this can remove one need for driving trucks through. Could you tell us more about this? I remember seeing a user comment a few years ago discussing the prospect of dumping excess electricity into nitrogen production but I had assumed it wasn't feasible. Does this technology really exist?
- ashoeafoot 2y ago
  https://advanced.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/advs.202300951 https://advanced.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ad... There is one experiment in kenia
- ashoeafoot 2y ago
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2brxBRnRH4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2brxBRnRH4 high voltage moisture trap
usrusr 2y ago
> Finally practicality of the frame for farming machines . Meaning the dimensions need to adapt to pre-existing machines. And ideally remain upright even if one post gets hit. I believe that the end-game for agrivoltaics must be a reversal of that relationship: not the panel scaffolding adapting to farming machinery, but farming machinery and panel scaffolding becoming one, the scaffolding doubling as rails for overhead machinery. The status quo in farming is that a lot of fertile ground is wasted on machinery tracks. Machinery is either narrow-wheeled and ruining the soil in the track through compression, or the wheels are very wide (for weight distribution) to cause less harm per square inch, but harming proportionally more. When you have scaffolding, scaffolding that is strong enough to survive a storm or two, it will also be strong enough to carry machinery. Not the machinery you'd attach to a 600 HP tractor, but the entire incentive situation for machinery size is based on the amount of harvest lost to machinery tracks and that would be completely solved through scaffolding-based machinery. And the issue of machinery tracks (and ground compaction) only gets worse when you start considering decarbonization: batteries are heavy, and a grid connect right above your field would be just what you'd not even dare dreaming of.

otherme123 2y ago

> In all other aspects i see this limited to orchards. This study is for a very specific region: East Africa (Kenia and Tanzania). Their main problems are too much evaporation, no energy sources, no other sources of food. I don't see how a solution that might work for a good share of humanity (Africa is huge: Kenya and Tanzania alone have 150 million people) gets dismissed as "limited to orchards" because it can't be used for industrial scale corn crops in my country.

rob74 2y ago
Well, unfortunately "Africa" is only mentioned in the article's title (which got cut to fit into HN's character limit) and not repeated in the article itself. But I can understand the concern: most agriculture (not only corn) is highly mechanized pretty much everywhere in the world except the poorest countries, so this would be limited to the crops that can't be mechanized.
- otherme123 2y ago
  Or this can be adapted to mechanized crops where it makes sense. Greenhouses where small fragile minihouses of 4x3 meters, made of wood and glass 100 years ago, used only in countries with harsh winters. Nobody in their right mind would use a tractor to work on them. Today they can be seen from the space and are mechanized... where it makes sense to do it. They turned a desert into a huge production of fresh vegetables: https://www.amusingplanet.com/2013/08/the-greenhouses-of-almeria.html https://www.amusingplanet.com/2013/08/the-greenhouses-of-alm... . Agrivoltaics could be something or nothing. But don't dismiss it because it today isn't already perfect for everything. Ten years ago the cost of the panels alone would make this projects 100% infeasible.
  - rob74 2y ago
    Those plastic-foil greenhouses spreading like cancer across the landscape in Spain should be shown (especially up close, where you can better see the dirty tattered foil and the waste they produce) to people who think solar panels or wind turbines are eyesores. I would definitely support replacing those cheapo greenhouses with something more permanent involving solar panels!
  - ashoeafoot 2y ago
    I wouldn't sum up the challenges if i would be completely dismissive , i think the potential is there, especially when it comes to in situ fertilizer nitrogenfixing and electro moisture harvesting (the breakthroughs there are insane, from peltier 50ml to condensator 500 ml recently). This is not a attack on the idea, just a lets strengthen this to solve alot of problems .

Lutger 2y ago

Vertical bifacial agrivoltaics system are a promising setup that addresses some of your concerns. Most importantly, tractors can easily pass through them. Another good setup is to combine it while grazing sheep.

lostlogin 2y ago
A problem with sheep is that they aren’t worth anything. Here is New Zealand we have replaced nearly all of them with cows. Much improved profits but destruction of the waterways. We call that a win.
- the_sleaze_ 2y ago
  Hot take: compress them all cheek to cheek in a warehouse, feed them corn and capture the methane they produce. Cover the roof in solar. Call that an even bigger win...
- Lutger 2y ago
  Good point. I'm not really interested in farming animals, I really don't know enough about it. In the Netherlands we still slaughter little under a million of them per year, on a populations of circa 17 million that should still mean they are worth something. But maybe grazing isn't worth anything at all and its only cost-effective if you put them in a big box and feed them grains or something. I don't know.

tomrod 2y ago

Or hayfields.

pfdietz 2y ago
Here in the US, a field of hay might gross $500/acre/year. A PV field selling power at $0.02/kWh would gross 50x that. You'd optimize such a setup for PV, not for combined PV + hay.
- tomrod 2y ago
  Aye, the question I answered wasn't focused on optimal layout, but potentially compatible crops.

cmrdporcupine 2y ago

Definitely doesn't seem appropriate for cash crops harvested by combine harvester. Most orchards and vineyards in temperate climates are attempting to maximize solar exposure, so would compete for space with the panels -- and also have their own trellising systems and so I struggle to see a fit there, too. But I can definitely see the use cases for two places. Grazing land for some ruminants, especially in hot dry climates. Provide shelter for animals, and shade for grasses. Vegetables, market garden or even large scale. (e.g. my neighbour grows something like 20 acres of cauliflower and it's all planted and picked by hand.) Many market gardens are using walk-behind / two-wheel tractors (BCS, etc.) which are far more agile and could easily handle moving around panels. Spill-off / erosion can be dealt with through building swales.

eldaisfish 2y ago
that's ok. Not every solution must work for all situations. the point here is that agrivoltaics tends to work well, especially in certain conditions. In central Africa, those conditions are reducing evaporation and providing shade to certain plants. In north america, those conditions are often sheep grazing, as is common in New York and Ontario.
- cmrdporcupine 2y ago
  Aside: There seems to be an uptick in sheep rearing in my area (southern Ontario, near Hamilton) all the sudden. In the last year, I've seen 3 farms local to me put up fencing to start grazing them. Which is interesting because it's actually very difficult to find Ontario lamb in the butcher shop, and it's not a very popular meat overall, so I'm wondering where the source of the demand is. The majority of the lamb in the local grocery stores is either frozen prepacked from New Zealand, or from Sun Gold foods in Alberta. But I find local lamb from this area tastes much better (less gamey), must be something about the grass vs whatever forage they're giving them in Alberta. My two border collies would love it if I raised sheep. But my quasi-vegetarian wife could never tolerate raising them for meat.. and dairy and wool make no $$ sense.
  - 2y ago

lurk2 2y ago

> One good aspect they didn't push is that this is ideal for electro farming. We have hyper effective electric moisture traps now and electro nitrogen fixing- combine that and this can remove one need for driving trucks through. Could you tell us more about this? I remember seeing a user comment a few years ago discussing the prospect of dumping excess electricity into nitrogen production but I had assumed it wasn't feasible. Does this technology really exist?

ashoeafoot 2y ago
https://advanced.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/advs.202300951 https://advanced.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ad... There is one experiment in kenia
ashoeafoot 2y ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2brxBRnRH4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2brxBRnRH4 high voltage moisture trap

usrusr 2y ago

> Finally practicality of the frame for farming machines . Meaning the dimensions need to adapt to pre-existing machines. And ideally remain upright even if one post gets hit. I believe that the end-game for agrivoltaics must be a reversal of that relationship: not the panel scaffolding adapting to farming machinery, but farming machinery and panel scaffolding becoming one, the scaffolding doubling as rails for overhead machinery. The status quo in farming is that a lot of fertile ground is wasted on machinery tracks. Machinery is either narrow-wheeled and ruining the soil in the track through compression, or the wheels are very wide (for weight distribution) to cause less harm per square inch, but harming proportionally more. When you have scaffolding, scaffolding that is strong enough to survive a storm or two, it will also be strong enough to carry machinery. Not the machinery you'd attach to a 600 HP tractor, but the entire incentive situation for machinery size is based on the amount of harvest lost to machinery tracks and that would be completely solved through scaffolding-based machinery. And the issue of machinery tracks (and ground compaction) only gets worse when you start considering decarbonization: batteries are heavy, and a grid connect right above your field would be just what you'd not even dare dreaming of.