{"id":12803,"date":"2021-10-07T19:19:00","date_gmt":"2021-10-07T19:19:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:10003\/?p=12803"},"modified":"2024-12-11T09:49:54","modified_gmt":"2024-12-11T09:49:54","slug":"solar-energy-in-agriculture-numerous-possibilities-and-benefits-inadequate-public-messaging","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oie.hr\/en\/solar-energy-in-agriculture-numerous-possibilities-and-benefits-inadequate-public-messaging\/","title":{"rendered":"Solar energy in agriculture: numerous possibilities and benefits, inadequate public messaging"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Regardless of the fact that in the long term  solar energy reduces the costs of agricultural production, enhances sustainability and competiveness, the great majority of farmers in Croatia is not aware of the benefits they can gain by using solars \u2013 according to the experts at the conference \u2018 Sunny Days\u2019<\/strong> held last week in Hvar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 For example, solars on farms can decrease the costs of electric energy by 50, 70, or more percent. There are numerous ways of financing the installations, from EU funds, state co-financing, loans, while with co-financing it is possible to achieve the investment return in a few years.  \u201cIn regard to family agricultural estates (FAE), the practice has shown that the average investment in a solar system amounts to approximately 50 thousand HRK, for smaller plants,  the power of let\u2019s say,  three, four kW. That can cover about 70 percent of the estate\u2019s needs, depending on whether the FAE<\/em>  uses more energy during the day or at night – if by day the solar covers more while at night less\u201d,<\/em> Ivan Zokovi\u0107<\/strong> from the Green Energy Community (ZEZ) and cooperative New Island from Kor\u0107ula told Hina. Let\u2019s say the cost of installing solars is about ten thousand HRK per kW of installed power, he goes on to say, which for the region of Dalmatia pays off in five to seven years.  \u201cWe are speaking here of solars without batteries, namely, using energy directly from the photo-voltage power plant\u201d,<\/em> Zokovi\u0107 goes on to say. As far as financing is concerned, one of the ways is through the Fund for Environmental Protection and Energy Efficiency, which as an example, for family farms on the island of Kor\u010dula, as Zokovi\u0107 points out,  about 60 percent of the costs of installing solars can be co-financed, while for the island of Lastovo, which belongs to the first group of islands, namely, high sea islands, as much as 80  percent of the costs can be covered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The solarisation of farms also brings a number of other benefits. One of the examples of the successful synergy of the solar and agricultural sectors is the installation of solars in vineyards for protection, as explained by Ivan \u0160imi\u0107, <\/strong>technical director EnergoVizija Company. \u201cIn the summer vineyards are scorched by the sun so the question arises if it is possible to make such solars that could be   placed above the vineyards and thus fend off the sunlight. It is possible and we are working on it\u201d, <\/em>\u0160imi\u0107 pointed out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In regard to using solar energy in agriculture, an important factor directly impacting the market positioning is the greater competitiveness of food produced by way of clean energy. \u201cIf we have a solar panel installed an oil mill, we can say that we produced that oil with \u2018zero emissions, and that is an additional benefit of implementing solar energy in agriculture\u201d, as pointed out by Ugo Toi\u0107<\/strong>, director of the Island Development Agency (OTRA). He added that farms can produce energy for sale as well, including the branding of tourist destinations as green destination which can also be connected with the agricultural sector. The Conference participants emphasized that the competent ministries should do more to inform farmers on the priorities of solar energy use, but the Ministry of Agriculture is currently not implementing any educational programs of this kind. \u201cWe do not have<\/em> educational programs devoted specifically to this topic. For all additional information,  farmers can always address the closest branch office of the Technical Support Department at the Ministry of Agriculture (former  \u201cAdvisory Service\u201d<\/em>, Lana Ba\u010dura,<\/strong> head of the service in the Department for Agricultural Incentives and Rural Development at the Ministry of Agriculture pointed out. The Ministry plans to hold educational workshops for farmers after the announcement of the new project financing invitation. \u201cThe Ministry of Agriculture, in cooperation with the Payment Agency in agriculture, fisheries, and rural development,  will hold, if the epidemiological situation allows it, educational workshops for potential users after the announcement of the invitation for financing solar energy projects in agriculture. The invitation refers to the implementation of operation 4.1.3 which is currently being developed\u201d, <\/em>Ba\u010dura said. It is not known whether there will be concrete, continual educational efforts in the near future for all interested parties. \u201cAt this point in time, I don\u2019t know whether there will be such educational activities. Within the Ministry of Agriculture, such educational activities are carried out by the Technical Support Department, and in addition to us, educational activities linked to the invitation are also carried out by various consulting firms, but usually after the announcement of the invitation\u201d. <\/em>Ba\u010dura explained.  For the time being, all farmers, regardless of participation in the invitation, can find information on the possibilities of investing in the development of photo-voltage electric power plants exclusively on the internet site of the Programme for Rural Development.  Zokovbi\u0107 added that the problem of the inadequate education of farmers can be solved by opening special offices within the local self-government units for informing and educating the public. The development of the solar sector in Croatia, namely, processes of integrating the solar and agricultural industries has been slowed down, among other, by the current policy which does not connect interrelated sectors such as science, industry, etc.  Stephan Schindele<\/strong>, the global director for solar energy at the BayWa Company emphasized at the conference in Hvar \u201cIt is necessary to create an inter-sectoral approach, connect agriculture, energy production…\u201d<\/em>, Schindele pointed out, adding that the energy sector also helps agricultural adapt more easily to climate change. The use of solars in agriculture also increases the farmers\u2019 chances of withdrawing EU funds since even the partial solarisation of the economy is increasingly becoming one of the conditions in the invitations given that sustainability, primarily the reduction of harmful emissions,  is one of the key EU goals in the green transition. (HINA)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Regardless of the fact that in the long term  solar energy reduces the costs of agricultural production, enhances sustainability and competiveness, the great majority of farmers in Croatia is not aware of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":12658,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[953,854],"tags":[955],"class_list":["post-12803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-res-croatia-2","category-sun","tag-resc-2"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/oie.hr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/oie.hr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/oie.hr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oie.hr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oie.hr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12803"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/oie.hr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12803\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28053,"href":"https:\/\/oie.hr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12803\/revisions\/28053"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oie.hr\/en\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/oie.hr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oie.hr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oie.hr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}