Powering agricultural operations with clean energy

Agrivoltaics (agriPV) projects are rising in popularity across the world as they bring opportunities for optimizing land usage for both solar photovoltaic power generation and agriculture. However, there are challenges that come with agriPV microgrids, such as transmitting power over long distances and navigating different load characteristics of the farmland and surrounding infrastructures.

Seeking the benefits of agriPV, a raspberry farm in Switzerland, partnered with SolBerry AG to build a DC microgrid. SolBerry commissioned innovenergy AG, a salt-based battery storage systems and Direct Current Grid solutions provider, to streamline the agriPV system design and manage the energy in the DC microgrid. innovenergy's integrated solution features String Optimizers from Ampt, the #1 optimizer company for large-scale PV systems.

The main goals of the project include:

• Protect 20 acres of raspberry crops with solar arrays
• Generate cost-competitive clean energy to power the farm's operations
• Generate enough clean energy for the company infrastructure that is adjacent to the PV arrays

The innovenergy and Ampt Solution

Learn how Ampt provided reliable, cost-effective clean energy production
With Ampt String Optimizers integrated into innovenergy's DConnect energy solution, SolBerry was able to deploy a robust DC microgrid that not only generates and manages energy used by the immediate agriculture business, but also serves the needs of neighboring energy consumers including residential housing, barns, electric vehicle charging stations, water pumps, and cooling systems.

Download the case study to learn about the agriPV microgrid solution, results, and ways to replicate this project.