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Voices on climate: "We are breaking new ground"

Stefan Baumann.

Stefan Baumann has spent more than four years at FiBL Switzerland, working in the Department of Soil Sciences on a range of climate related projects. (Photo: FiBL, Andreas Basler)

Since 2022, it has been possible to build photovoltaic systems on agricultural land in Switzerland. A prerequisite is dual use, meaning that the systems generate electricity whilst simultaneously providing a demonstrable benefit for agricultural crops. In our series "Voices on Climate", Stefan Baumann discusses the challenges, opportunities and FiBL research in this area.

The requirement for dual use is what distinguishes the situation in Switzerland from that in the EU, where agri-photovoltaics (Agri-PV) is usually focused exclusively on energy production. As a result, there is as yet little evidence of how dual use performs in practice. Stefan Baumann, who leads a FiBL research project on the use of Agri-PV, says in the interview, among other things: "The theoretical potential is huge. But there is still a lot of work to be done between potential and practice. What we need are reference systems, long-term data and reliable economic framework conditions."

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