The Netherlands passed the 18 million population mark yesterday. According to CBS, the accelerated growth is not due to a higher birth rate. Nor entirely to wars such as those in Ukraine and Syria. Factors such as the economic situation, European Union expansions, and policy choices, such as offering English-language education in the Netherlands, all contribute to it.
Whether and how the growth will continue remains to be seen, of course. But we can anticipate a situation where growth will continue steadily. For example, we in the Netherlands must use our land optimally. Below we list two innovations in the world of solar panels that can make this possible.
Agrivoltaic horticulture
More homes need to be built in the Netherlands. Meanwhile, the energy transition is in full swing and more and more meadows with solar panels are being added. There must also be enough space for agriculture. In a country with limited space, such as the Netherlands, agrivoltaic (AV) horticulture can be a solution. This combines food and electricity production.
Two categories of such AV power plants exist: plants where agriculture takes place between photovoltaic (PV) “arrays. Here, vertical plants stand along the crops. Power plants where agriculture takes place under PV panels, which also accommodate grazing animals. In this case, panels partially cover the plants.
Solar panels can act as a kind of shield for plantations from hail and from the excessive heat of the summer months. Although research shows that some crops produced more under solar panels, the opposite is also true. Research by the Fraunhofer Institute showed how potato and winter wheat yields dropped under AV installations.
Better solar panels
So more and more solar fields are being added, even though we have limited space. By making solar panels more efficient, we can save significantly on costly land area. We spoke earlier with professor René Janssen. He and colleagues have found a way to improve perovskite solar cells. Ultimately, these efficient solar panels could allow solar fields to take up less space because they provide higher efficiency.
One challenge with these types of solar panels, however, is that they don’t perform as well as they could in theory. So Janssen and his colleagues set out to investigate. And what turned out: different elements of the perovskite material in the solar cell do not mix perfectly with each other, resulting in lower efficiency. A problem the team of researchers from the universities of Toronto and Eindhoven managed to tackle together.
Perovskite cells are already achieving similar efficiencies compared to regular silicon cells. With the application of Janssen and his colleagues, that becomes higher.
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