Norway is working towards a low-emission society and its agriculture is in demand to contribute by reducing greenhouse gas emissions from food and feed production. There are two areas which may be considered as «low-hanging fruits»: the reduction of emissions from diesel-driven tractor work and from inefficient use of nitrogen fertilizer. The SolarFarm project has been awarded a 4-year funding to address these areas by developing a concept of innovative technical solutions and methodologies, being applicable on most Norwegian farms.
The SolarFarm concept utilizes available roof area on farm buildings for solar energy capture in order to power a fleet of novel electrical machinery for a more automatized and targeted field management. It focuses three main research areas. First, energy carriers and storage capacities that are tailored for the annual and highly dynamic pattern in renewable energy production and demand. Second, novel farm machinery, moving from one or two large and heavy diesel tractors to a few and partly unmanned electrical tractors. Third, the idea of demand-based nitrogen fertilization, where drones for data acquisition and automatized recommendation and application systems go hand-in-hand.
To shorten the time-span from concept to implementation, SolarFarm comprises a set of approaches, ranging from relatively simple and cheaper solutions to more comprehensive and expensive solutions, tailored to the individual farmer’s motivation and financial situation.
SolarFarm represents a base-case for renewable energy use in a farm setting, enabling assessments of energy aspects, sustainability, environmental impact, cost-efficiency and consequences for policy-makers. It is a an inter-disciplinary cooperation between NIBIO, IFE, two international experts, and a stakeholder group, which cover the entire knowledge-chain from renewable energy production to state-of-the-art precision agriculture technologies to produce food and feed in a more sustainable manner.