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Winesolar: Sustainable Data Driven Agriculture for Vineyards

Iberdrola-logo


With more than 170 years of history, Iberdrola is a Spanish multinational electric utility company based in Bilbao, global energy leader, committed to clean energy, as a fundamental pillar for building its clean, reliable and intelligent business model. 
This innovative and sustainable project is driven by a consortium of companies including wine producers González Byass, leading clean and renewable energy provider Iberdrola, PVH as a manufacturer of solar panel trackers and structures, and Avvale as the technology expert responsible for sensor data collection, circular business experts, software and machine learning applications.

The goal was to create a symbiotic ecosystem where technology and nature converge, resulting in a renewable energy source for wine producers and ensuring a sustainable future for the Spanish wine industry.
Agrovoltaics seeks to maximize the synergies between agricultural production and photovoltaic production, with the best possible use of land use. In this particular case, the priority of the project is to enable the ideal conditions for the quality of the grapes, now that climate change is affecting crops. For this reason, the integration of PV in the vineyard is sought in a way that maximizes agrovoltaic energy production and the quality of the product. In addition to this improvement in the growing conditions, there is also the symbiosis mentioned above, offering the possibility of increasing the solar power installed in the country thanks to these cultivated lands and in turn offering a benefit both to the company (in this case, González Byass) by covering part or all of its demand with renewable energy and feeding the surplus into the grid, with the consequent benefit that this can have on them, and to the electricity system, by promoting the increase in renewable generation that contributes to combating climate change.

The usage of this video is authorized by Iberdrola  –  Source: Financial Times

The Challenge

Farming is a vital sector that increasingly faces climate change conditions.
In response to the challenges posed by warmer temperatures and extreme weather events affecting grape composition and growing conditions, this pioneering agrovoltaic project aims to enhance grape quality while promoting the sustainability of the crop.
 
In addition to climate conditions, the usage of precision and more intensive agriculture has increased CO2 emissions, so our customers wanted to set-up a project of wine production with zero-emissions, in order to reduce the environmental impact of the energy they’re using, to optimize the use of land and take advantage of the energy produced.
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The Approach

A highly technological ecosystem has been created within a farm to enable the crops to thrive while harnessing renewable energy. In order to do so, our client would need the power of artificial intelligence, software applied to IoT / sensors and cutting-edge solar panels to exploit the elements and create a sustainable renewable energy resource for the rural farming outlet.

First fundamental step was the installation of mobile solar panels to produce CO2 free energy and provide shade to the plants.  A further crucial step was the installation of various sensors which detect relevant information such as: leaves temperature, average temperature, relative humidity. The sensors also collect data about the soil condition in order to optimize the irrigation and an dendrometer sensor provides information about the level of “activity” of the plant by measuring the trunk diameter variation.

Together with Iberdrola, PVHardware, and Gonzalez Byass, Avvale plays the role of the technology expert in this ambitious project: collecting all the sensors’ data and leveraging artificial intelligence, we determine the best position of the solar panels to absorb energy and provide crop cover for the vines and the best growth conditions for the yard, creating data-driven and sustainable vineyards. 

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The Impact

The Winesolar project has pursued the creation of a sustainable agricultural ecosystem that creates conditions for higher quality grapes in a more arid climate than usual due to climate change, reduces traditional energy and water consumption, and promotes a renewable energy resource for the vineyard and the electricity system. The expected impact is to at least maintain crop quality despite the consequences of climate change and a significant CO2 emissions reduction. 

While improving the quality of grapes the project aims to reduce the negative consequences of climate change, by making progress in the decarbonisation of the wine producers activity and keep on decreasing energy costs.

A future goal is to replicate this ecosystem in other vineyards around Spain, which accounts for 13% of the world’s vineyards and can absolutely generate a global positive impact.

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