Thus separated from each other, attached by a thin metal frame culminating 5 meters in height and posts arranged every 27 meters, one would believe that the photovoltaic panels of Sylvain Raison are swinging in the wind. 25 kilometers north of Vesoul, in the commune of Amance in the Haute-Saône department, this farmer is experimenting on 3 of his 850 hectares with a French first. An “agricultural canopy” of 5,500 photovoltaic panels, installed at the beginning of June by the solar energy producer, TSE, which is to be understood by the latter, is the first of its kind intended for field crops. It allows, given the height of the panels, the farmer to continue to be able to pass his tractor in his field where wheat has been sown for this year. In addition, the development of the production of solar panels is boosted here by a technology allowing the inclination of the panels to better capture the radiation.
The icing on the cake, the culture that grows under the panels is doing very well. “At 20 centimeters above the ground, there is 30% higher humidity, a temperature reduced by 3 degrees and photosynthesis six times higher. The yield is better than on the control plot next to the installation”, bragging Matthieu Debonnet , president of TSE. The farmer, on the other hand, is satisfied but remains cautious: “The first months are very positive, but we lack perspective to make a definitive assessment”, underlines Sylvain Raison. But for TSE, there is no question of waiting. Created in 2012 in Sophia-Antipolis, this company of 200 employees claims to be the leader in agrivoltaism in France, a somewhat barbaric term to designate on a given plot the synergy between agricultural production and an additional photovoltaic solar installation. Demonstrators like that of Amance, the group wants to deploy 13 of them in France on 66 hectares, in order to test its “canopy” or its “shadehouses” on all types of culture and breeding. “The idea is to combine the best of energy and the agricultural world”, assures Matthieu Debonnet.
A concept invented in the early 1980s and first developed in Japan, agrivoltaism took time to emerge. It has grown in France in recent years and particularly in 2022. It must be said, to hear the defenders of technology, that its benefits address very current issues in both worlds. Additional income for suffocated French farmers, source of carbon-free and competitive electricity production for the country, promises of better agricultural yields below the panels… all the boxes are checked. The executive is obviously looking at the subject with greed, given the objective set by Emmanuel Macron in Belfort to reach 100 GW of installed solar capacity by 2050. A promise which many agree can not be based solely on industrial wasteland, roofs or car park shades. “If we don’t manage to bring together the agricultural world and the energy world, it will be difficult to reach 100 GW”, warns William Arkwright, managing director of Engie Green, which carries the ambitions of the former GDF Suez on renewables in France.
The gold Rush
According to Ademe, only 167 projects exist to date, for 1.3 GW of electrical capacity, barely more than the capacity of a nuclear reactor. “The expectation is there. There are thousands of hectares in development, and several hundred thousand hectares identified”, figures Antoine Nogier, president of the company Sun’R and also of France Agrivoltaisme. According to his calculations, between 60 and 80 GW of solar power, spread over 20,000 to 30,000 farms, could see the light of day by 2050. The Energy Regulatory Commission, for its part, has been changing its calls for several months offers to make room for this type of project. With 30 million hectares of agricultural land available in France, many want to take a piece of the pie. “It’s the gold rush. As in the early hours of the development of ground-mounted photovoltaics, companies roam the countryside and sign land reserves with farmers at crazy rents, up to 16,000 euros per hectare per year, when the rent [bail rural conclu entre le propriétaire d’un terrain et un exploitant agricole] usually amounts to around 200 to 500 euros per year”, notes the manager.
This phenomenon worries agricultural unions. At these prices, the owners of arable land are obviously tempted to favor energy production rather than food. This speculation also complicates the transmission of land to young farmers, unable to match such rents. However, half of the country’s farmers will reach retirement age in the next five years. This prompted the Young Farmers to ask for a moratorium on the development of agrivoltaism in September.
The Confédération paysanne is also against it. It points to other excesses, from the grabbing of land for energy purposes to the degradation of landscapes and the conflicts of interest caused by the financial windfall of photovoltaics. The union often takes the example of a project in Bourgneuf-en-Mauges (Maine-et-Loire). On this 5-hectare field, an arborist topped in 2011 with a company that offered to equip greenhouses with 12,000 photovoltaic panels that were supposed to allow the production of 200 tonnes of strawberries per year. The current Minister for the Ecological Transition, Christophe Béchu, had even “given his blank check at the start of this project”. But the cohabitation turned into a fiasco. Under the panels, too close together and letting in little light, nothing grows. Agricultural production has since been discontinued.
In Bourgneuf-en-Mauges, the excesses of certain agrivoltaic installations
© / Frédéric Hauss/Farmers Confederation 49
“We’re playing sorcerer’s apprentices”
“Many producers commit to performance promises, or praise the merits of the technology, but we still have little perspective on the long-term impact of photovoltaics on the crops that grow underneath”, says Xavier Bodard, founding president of Davele, a study and research office on the subject, based in Montpellier. “We are playing a bit of a sorcerer’s apprentice. We are taking the risk of jeopardizing food sovereignty for the benefit of energy sovereignty. All this, while it seems to us that there is potential elsewhere, on roofs, industrial wastelands. Photovoltaic on agricultural land, this should be the last resort,” said Nicolas Girod, spokesman for the Confédération paysanne.
As far as producers and energy companies are concerned, they all lip service to the fact that agrivoltaism is currently more expensive than solar installed in the traditional way on the ground. The profitability of the projects depends on a series of factors including obviously the sunshine, but also the topography of the sites. The connection to source substations also complicates the financial equation for agricultural fields that would be far from them. “We will not be able to grow projects everywhere, but solar energy is by far a very competitive energy today and we will bring the costs down over time”, nevertheless defends Matthieu Debonnet of TSE.
An argument that will probably not convince Nicolas Girod. According to him, anger is rising in the countryside. Many farmers have “serious doubts about the effectiveness of photovoltaics and the meaning given to peasant activity”, he explains. The critics, Antoine Nogier of France Agrivoltaisme says he hears them. He shares them, to some extent. “Some projects are real alibi, we make believe in a synergy between agricultural and energy production. But agrivoltaism is not just about putting PV in a field and grazing sheep underneath”, he explains. he. Christian Dupraz, research director at the National Institute of Agronomic Research (Inrae) and father of this technology in France, agrees: “Most project leaders, especially energy companies, still think about the subject with classic models, where 5,000 to 6,000 square meters of panels are placed on 10,000 meters on the ground, i.e. 50% to 60% of the surface. However, in agrivoltaism, for the light to pass, you have to go down to 30%. not hide, it reduces the profitability of the installation”.
Optimistic, the two specialists are convinced that time will make it possible to clean up the sector and bring out good practices. With regard to the tension on land, which remains one of the points of tension on the side of the Young Farmers, the second even proposes to align rents on the price of rent, or to ensure that the money drawn of the energy lease does not belong to the owner but to the operator, unless these two are the same person. “For the sake of fairness and fair distribution for farmers, we must also tend to multiply small installations. Rather 100,000 one-hectare projects than 1,000 100-hectare projects”, defends Antoine Nogier, who asks so that the agricultural world keeps a cool head. By 2050, the potential of 60 to 80 GW would not even represent 0.1% of the useful agricultural area.
Like the entire sector, the latter nevertheless expects a lot from the law on renewable energies discussed in the National Assembly. The preparatory work in committee and in the Senate is going in the right direction, according to all the sources interviewed by the Express. “The definition given by the bill is clear, and it will avoid a lot of excesses,” said William Arkwright, of Engie Green. In addition to the strict definition which gives precedence to the agricultural project over the production of energy, each project will have to go through the inspection of the Commissions for the preservation of natural, agricultural and forest areas, or chambers of agriculture for example. “This is the sine qua non of the acceptability of projects in the territories”, further indicates Antoine Nogier, who is however awaiting the implementing decrees, because the devil often hides there. The executive promises, however, that he will be attentive. “To achieve the 100 GW objective, we need 100,000 to 200,000 hectares. This is barely the size of the Belfort department. We can afford very strong agricultural supervision without jeopardizing the promise of the Head of State”, we underline on the side of the Ministry of Energy Transition. Enough to calm the frenzy in the peasant world?