Iberdrola, through its International Startup Programme (PERSEO), is seeking solutions enabling the roll-out of photovoltaic projects by facilitating coexistence with rural activities which improve land use in a sustainable way.
The technological proposals must explore the combination of solar photovoltaic generation with one of a number of complementary land uses.
They are agriculture/horticulture, with proposals that combine different crops with the production of solar and livestock, where proposals look at combining livestock-rearing activities with the production of solar.
They other areas are fish farming, where proposals are sought to integrate the production of photovoltaic energy into fish farming and bee-keeping or other methods of pollination, which can be complementary to solar production.
The proposals will be analysed by specialists from Iberdrola’s renewables business.
Ideas could include solutions that contribute towards improving or optimising the productivity of the land, so minimising the potential penalty for electricity production, or solutions that lead to better water management, temperature optimisation, heat and refrigeration supply for facilities and processes.
Other solutions include offering competitive investment costs compared to conventional photovoltaic projects or solutions focusing on minimising the operating and maintenance costs of photovoltaic plants as well as the costs for the complementary land use.
The evaluation of these proposals will take into account factors that include investment and operating costs, maturity of the proposals and their adaptability to the design of photovoltaic plants, diversity of crops that could be planted, minimal loss of cultivable land, sustainability of the farming concept, improvements in biodiversity and carbon capture.
The prize will consist of Iberdrola signing a collaboration agreement for the development of a proof-of-concept with PERSEO or any other relevant Iberdrola Group company, which will assume the costs and provide the winner with the necessary technical support, giving access to infrastructure and real data to test the solution.