“It’s clear that agrovoltaics are the Next Big Thing in energy and an extremely useful tool for our rural development,” general secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture, Christiana Kalogirou stressed during the conference on Agrovoltaics, which is being held as part of the 12th International Conference & Exhibition on Green Flexible Printed Electronics Industry (ICEFPE22).
As Ms. Kalogirou pointed out, the Ministry of Agricultural Development and Food prioritizes the strengthening of Greenhouse Cultivation and its development in a sustainable way.
The president of HOPE-A, (which coordinates the activities of industrial and research organizations in Greece in the multi-billion rapidly evolving field of Flexible Organic & Printed Electronics (OEs)) Professor Stergios Logothetidis, spoke about the advantages of agrovoltaics and the saving of energy, water, and land resulting from their application.
The advantages of this revolutionary innovation of Agrovoltaics with the use of 3rd generation photovoltaics are:
- Triple benefit: Production of food, energy and at the same time a reduction in water consumption with hydroponic cultivation
- Increase production up to 30%
- Energy saving up to 30%
- Energy Production using 3rd generation translucent photovoltaics
- Plant shading and capture of harmful UV radiation
- Light construction, easy installation
- Short term amortization
- Remote crop monitoring
- Creation of new high paying jobs for young farmers/entrepreneurs
- Protection of the environment, conservation of natural resources
- Circular economy
