11.10.2020
The Eleftheros Typos newspaper reported on a pioneering experiment in Thessaloniki, where a vineyard under solar glass is harvested twice a year.
The controlled environment under the glazing extends the growing season, while the same surface generates electricity for the site.
More coverage is collected under press; the technology itself is described on the project page.
Related material: the project, press coverage and the collaborators behind the technology.
Power generated on a greenhouse roof is usually consumed on site. Climate control, irrigation pumps, ventilation and supplementary lighting all draw during the same daylight hours when the glazing produces, so much of the output never touches the grid.
That self-consumption is what makes the economics work. Electricity used where it is generated is worth the retail price rather than the feed-in tariff, and it avoids both transmission losses and the connection queues that hold up ground-mounted projects.
Greenhouses draw electricity during daylight hours: ventilation, irrigation pumps, climate control and screens all run while the sun is up. That overlap means most of what the roof generates is consumed on the spot rather than exported.
Self-consumed electricity is worth the retail price rather than the export tariff, and it sidesteps both transmission losses and the grid connection queues that delay ground-mounted projects in agricultural regions.