Solar energy news and discussion

[wjfox]

[firestar464]

The UK will legalize plug-in solar on August 27

https://www.engadget.com/2219664/uk-wil ... august-27/

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[firestar464]

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[caltrek]

Why Egyptian Farmers are Growing Crops Under Solar Panels
By Matt Simon
August 19, 2026

Introduction:

(Grist) Ancient Egyptian civilization blossomed in the scorching desert thanks to the Nile River, which delivered fresh water and annual dumps of nutrient-rich sediment. Clever engineering moved H2O so efficiently that farmers were able to churn out huge surpluses of staple crops like wheat, which fed the Roman Empire.

Thousands of years later, the African nation’s farmers — like so many others around the world — are grappling with water shortages and ever-fiercer temperatures, which threaten to wilt their crops. So like their ancestors before them, they’re innovating, this time with a burgeoning technique known as agrivoltaics: By covering fields with solar panels, farmers generate clean electricity and shade crops, reducing evaporation and mitigating heat stress.

Two pilot projects in Egypt — from a variety of funders and partnering organizations — are testing how the technology might fare in small farming communities and on a larger scale in the country. “There is no perfect guideline on how to get there, so I imagine many projects like ours will be trying out different things,” said Gofran Chowdhury, head of innovation at the renewable energy company 3E, one of the partners in the campaign.

Researchers around the world are finding that instead of solar panels stopping plants from flourishing, what with all that shade, they can supercharge growth. Many plants evolved to grow in the dappled light of the forest floor, for instance, and struggle under full sun. The partner groups and farmers in Egypt are experimenting with different arrangements of panels, like a checkerboard, as shown above (see link). This doesn’t generate as much electricity as a sprawling solar farm, with row after row of solid panels with few gaps, but it lets more sunlight reach the crops.

Read more here: https://grist.org/energy/why-egyptian- ... -panels/

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[Yuli Ban]

A good problem to have to be honest

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