HyPErFarm: An EU Horizon 2020 Innovation Action project

The sustainable development goals of the UN and climate targets of the EU require that all economic sectors sharply reduce fossil-based use. However, the agricultural sector has the potential to not only greatly defossilise, but even  produce energy – and that not to the detriment of, but alongside with food production.

Photovoltaic (PV) has become dramatically more competitive relative to other renewable energy sources, and is now as competitive as wind power. Currently, PV-parks are installed on large land areas, leading to loss of land for cultivating crops. The ideal solution is provided by combined agro-voltaic systems with dual land use for crop production and simultaneous power production.

HyPErFarm joins multiple types of actors with the objective to optimise viable agrivoltaic business models as well as test the marketability of the products, via inclusion of new innovative PV technologies (PV H2-production, bifacial PV-panels), radically new crop production systems, stakeholder innovation workshops, and citizen-consumer acceptance, public perception analysis and farmer adoption studies.

The EU Horizon 2020 Innovation Action project “HYPERFARM - Hydrogen and photovoltaic electrification on farm” is a collaboration with 14 partners, in particular in Denmark, Germany and Belgium.

In Denmark the project is represented by Aarhus University, as an inter-disciplinary project between the Department of Mechanical and Production Engineering, the Department of Agroecology, the Department of Food Science, the Centre for Circular Bioeconomy, and the Department of Management represented by the MAPP Centre. Partners in Denmark are Hunsballe Grønt, and Agrointelli. 

The Department of Management will study the business case and public acceptability. The project contributes to the general management and marketing and consumer behaviour field as well as to the study of farmer, citizen, and consumer acceptance of a sustainable technological innovation in particular.

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