Agrovoltaics

More information

Links provided by James Gien Wong, who is based in South Africa:

"The City of Cape Town is trying to develop its own renewable energy in the next 3 years to make the city more resilient against loadshedding:

https://cleantechnica.com/2023/01/29/cape-town-plans-to-provide-protection-from-the-first-4-stages-of-eskoms-load-shedding-within-3-years/

It was recently awarded assistance from C40 to build a 60MW plant:

https://www.iol.co.za/capetimes/news/city-of-cape-town-launches-r12bn-solar-plant-project-be5ea6f2-c596-429e-bb53-d3d9893598fa

However, there is growing recognition within South Africa by the engineering community of the potential of Agrivoltaics:

https://www.engineeringnews.co.za/article/agrivoltaics-an-opportunity-for-jobs-better-food-energy-water-security-2022-05-04

This article shows that:

agrivoltaic systems work well with potatoes, certain grape varieties, hops, spinach, lettuce, field beans and legumes, as well as onion, cucumber and zucchini to a lesser extent. However, it does not work with wheat, corn, pumpkin, sunflower, broccoli or millet, as these crops tend to be more sunlight intensive.

Western Cape is the home of the South African wine industry and has a lot of vineyards which seem to have good potential for agrivoltaics, as shown in other use cases around the world:

https://www.wosa.co.za/The-Industry/Winegrowing-Areas/Winelands-of-South-Africa/

https://www.pv-magazine.com/2022/10/04/agrivoltaics-for-vineyards/ https://www.pv-magazine.com/2020/03/31/a-good-year-for-solar-agrivoltaics-in-vineyards/

(from an email in May 2023)