With Agrivoltaics, China Is Crushing Trump’s Fossil Fuel Dreams

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US President Donald Trump sailed into the White House on a tide of cash from his fossil energy donors. However, he and they have been caught napping. The global renewable energy transition is still gathering steam and expanding into new areas. To cite just one example, the Chinese solar firm GCL is taking its up-sized agrivoltaic system on the road, with Germany tapped to demonstrate the benefits of combining farming with solar panels on the same land.

The Benefits Of Agrivoltaics

The initial solar boom of the early 2000s typically involved plastering the land with sand or gravel to make a low-maintenance foundation for PV arrays. That practice has given way to a more sustainable model that focuses on building up soil health, conserving water, establishing pollinator habitats, and improving biodiversity.

The next step is to introduce farming activities between the rows of solar panels. That’s a win-win for solar development on marginal lands, where the beneficial impact of partial shade can introduce, or re-introduce, farming to areas that were previously unproductive.

Complications arise, though, when existing farmland is considered for solar development. Finding crops that can tolerate some shade is one side of the coin. Making sufficient space for machinery and workers is the other. Over both of these elements is the economic factor. Solar panels take up space. The question is whether or not the value of solar energy can offset revenue from raising crops or grazing livestock in that space.

In some cases, solar is the only revenue option. Take the US, for example. Trump made a lot of promises to farmers on his way to the White House, but instead they got market-killing tariffs, crippling inflation, and worker shortages alongside a fresh wave of climate impacts. The income from solar leases can be a lifeline for struggling farmers, crops or no crops.

Still, with global land scarcity issues looming and the demand for electricity rising, combining solar panels with crops is a more sustainable way forward, and new technologies are beginning to improve the land use efficiency score of agrivoltaic projects.

New Technologies, More Efficient Land Use

GCL has combined four new technologies in its land use efficiency toolkit:

1. Bifacial solar panels: These harvest sunlight from both sides, enabling them to assume a space-saving vertical position if needed. Bifacial solar panels can also piggyback onto new fencing projects, saving both space and money.

2. Tunable solar panels: A solar cell can be customized to enable more or less light to pass onto crops. GCL states that its bifacial panels can be adjusted to a range of 15-40% light pass-through.

3. Elevated racks: The third element consists of racks elevated to 9 feet with tracking capability to optimize the sun-collecting angle. GCL uses aluminum for this hardware, to ensure durability under livestock-intensive conditions including humidity, salt mist, and ammonia exposure.

4. Advanced system management: “By integrating meteorological data, crop growth sensors, and inverter analytics, the system uses AI algorithms to optimize module tilt and irrigation schedules,” GCL explains.

Demonstrating all four technologies in action, on October 15 GCL reminded everyone that its GCL System Integration branch has provided 146,000 of its 550-watt bifacial, tunable solar modules to the new 76-megawatt Tützpatz agrivoltaic project in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany. Commissioned by Vattenfall, in September, the new project is among the largest agrivoltaic projects in Germany, spanning 93 hectares (about 230 acres).

Combined with elevated racks and tracking systems, GCL calculates a land use efficiency of 80% for the Tützpatz project.

Who’s Gonna Pay For All This?

Another key factor, of course, is financing. China’s solar growth has been fueled by subsidies that are not available everywhere around the world. To finance the Tützpatz project without public subsidies, GCL secured a 10-year power purchase agreement for the entire 76-megawatt output of the array with the PASM branch of the German telecommunications firm Deutsche Telekom.

“This milestone demonstrates the adaptability and value resilience of GCL modules across diverse geographic and regulatory landscapes,” GCL states.

GCL’s cost-cutting measures also come into play. The company takes note of its vertically integrated supply chain, reducing solar module costs by 8-12%. Balance-of-system costs are further reduced through joint procurement programs with industry partners, and shortened construction timelines.

GCL also offers some results from its domestic agrivoltaic project to make the case for technology-forward agrivoltaic systems. “At the 310 MW Zhundong project, this platform improved alfalfa yields beneath panels by 20% while cutting irrigation demand by 15%,” the company states.

“In Anhui’s Jinzhai pilot upgrade, motorized adjustable mounts boosted camellia oilseed yields by 30% and raised solar efficiency by 8%, achieving genuine ‘dual harvests’ of agriculture and energy,” they add.

What About The US?

Yes, what about it? The US has barely tapped into its agrivoltaic potential, which is too bad for US farmers, especially in these challenging times. An overwhelming majority of voters in rural communities were happy to see Trump slip back into office again, and in return they got crippling tariffs, inflation, worker shortages, and climate impacts.

All is not lost, though. State and local agrivoltaic projects are still underway, with Virginia and Detroit providing two examples of the opportunities available for small farming operations and community agriculture projects.

Meanwhile, GCL is already looking ahead to the next emerging technology, consisting of perovskite-silicon tandem cells. According to GCL, the new solar formula adds more flexibility to agrivoltaic systems by enabling more light to pass through. “In parallel, the company is accelerating the rollout of GW-scale agrivoltaic projects in resource-rich regions such as Southwest and Northwest China,” GCL.

That scale-up is already in evidence, as China has added agrivoltaics to its anti-desertification toolkit. A two-gigawatt solar array in Mongolia, for example, is slated for completion before the end of the year. The developer, JA Solar, has stated that “the project incorporates an innovative ‘PV + ecological restoration’ model, using under-module planting to help build a micro-ecosystem and combat desertification.”

Hold on to your hats. Despite the anti-solar fever gripping the President and his allies in Congress, the US solar industry will not be kept down. One area to keep an eye on is the floating solar industry, where interest among water system managers and industrial water users is rising.

The proposed 6.2 gigawatt Esmeralda 7 solar group in Nevada is also still in the pipeline despite rumors to the contrary — for now, that is.

Photo: Bifacial solar panels are among the new technologies at work to maximize the land use efficiency of agrivoltaic systems (“View of the Tützpatz 1 and Tützpatz 3 sub-areas” courtesy of Vattenfall / Klas Neidhardt).