According to a new study, combining farming with green energy production could also boost food security and generate additional income for farmers.
Installing solar panels and growing crops on the same land could be the answer to increasing renewable electricity use in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia, reaching 68% of these countries' current energy demand, a new study suggests.
The study by the energy think tank Ember says that by combining electricity generation with crop growing — known as agrivoltaics — just 9% of farmland could meet the region's agricultural and food processing electricity needs.
The UK-based NGO believes that 180 GW of solar panels could be installed over crops in Central European countries – three times more than is planned by 2030 under the countries' draft energy plans, and seven times more than the current total installed capacity across all of them.
The so-called Visegrád Four countries, which hold 19% of the EU's arable land, grow a disproportionate share of staple crops such as wheat, oats and rye; Ember notes that this output could be threatened by volatile fertiliser prices, recurring droughts and extreme weather.
Food security
The analysis shows that installing solar panels not only provides farmers with extra income, but can improve water conservation in dry years and shield crops from extreme weather – in some cases even increasing yields.
The report concludes that for shade-loving berries or fruit, overhead agrivoltaics can raise yields by up to 16% while still producing 63% of the electricity generated by a conventional solar array.
"Given that Europe is increasingly exposed in volatile times, food and energy security are extremely important," says data analyst and report co-author Dr Paweł Czyżak (Dr. Paweł Czyżak). "Installing solar panels on farmland can help farmers advance both of these goals while keeping their businesses stable and profitable."
Dr Paweł Czyżak stressed that "legislation and support schemes" are crucial to unlocking the potential of agrivoltaics, which face the same grid access difficulties as conventional solar panels, yet of the four countries examined only the Czech Republic has drawn up precise rules for the sector.
In France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands, the rules allow land to be used for both farming and electricity generation without the loss of agricultural subsidies, and this has already driven the rollout of more than 200 agri-PV projects across Europe.
A study carried out in Poland looking at a case of agrivoltaics combined with wheat growing concluded that revenue per hectare can be twelve times higher than from growing wheat alone, Ember noted, with potential annual profits from the combined sale of electricity and wheat reaching 1268 euros per hectare — in stark contrast to conventional wheat growing, which is estimated to have made a net loss in 2024.
Farmers may need convincing, however. Marion Picot (Marion Picot), Secretary General of the Brussels-based European Council of Young Farmers (CEJA), told Euronews that farmers' main concerns about the rollout of solar power stem from the prospect of fertile land being given over to solar panels with no scope for growing crops.
"Solar PV can provide additional income streams, provided it does not undermine the economic, social and environmental value of agricultural land, and priority should be given to rooftop installations or to effective combination with crop and livestock farming," said Marion Picot.