0
Largest Farm to Grow Crops Under Solar Panels Proves To Be A Bumper Crop For Agrivoltaic Land Use
(site.extension.uga.edu)
this post was submitted on 27 Sep 2023
0 points (NaN% liked)
Technology
59605 readers
4202 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Possibly a stupid question, but is there anything toxic in the solar panels or their infrastructure that could contaminate the plants or soil below? Particularly if the panels were damaged in, say, extreme weather, but also as a result of general wear and tear. I'm thinking heavy metal dust, carcinogenic liquid components, that sort of thing. As per the article this seems like it could be a good land use pairing, but not if it renders the soil unfit for agriculture due to a buildup of contamination.
Not an expert, but my gut reaction is not really. The panels themselves are largely glass, aluminum and silicon, with fairly small amounts of doping agents. There are electronics but since they're outside they're largely encased in something, wiring which would be plastic and copper or possibly aluminum, and then the structure itself which is going to be steel and concrete.
Solar panels are significantly more sturdy than one would think given they are essentially a giant piece of glass. They're usually rated to 12mm hail or more, which would normally absolutely devastate a crop. They don't really go bad either they just become less efficient over time. There's no moving parts to wear, no liquids, and in some designs very little in the way of electronics to go bad.
Essentially, I wouldn't be surprised if there would be more harmful contamination from a diesel tractor driving around in the field or from a nearby coal power plant than from any kind of solar array as long as it didn't have like, lead legs or something.
That being said, these kind of projects have been shown a lot but they're unlikely to be used in most large scale farming - they usually interfere with any machines used to plant or harvest, and are only really well suited to a few crops. Parking lots are a much easier target for this type of solar project.