Electrification and Sustainable Energy Systems to Improve Agriculture and Rural Areas

A special issue of Agronomy (ISSN 2073-4395). This special issue belongs to the section "Farming Sustainability".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (20 June 2023) | Viewed by 3632

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Department of Agricultural and Forestry Engineering, University of Valladolid, Campus Duques de Soria, 42004 Soria, Spain
Interests: energy; engineering; computer science; photovoltaic systems; microgrids; distributed generation; smart metering
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

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Guest Editor
Department of Agricultural Engineering and Forestry, Campus Ciudad Universitaria, Technical University of Madrid (UPM), 28040 Madrid, Spain
Interests: photovoltaics; sensors; agrivoltaics; greenhouses
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

According to the United Nations sustainable objectives, agriculture is the single largest employer in the world, sustaining the livelihoods of 40 percent of the world’s population, many of whom continue to live in poverty. Agriculture uses a large amount of water, which in turn requires a lot of energy to be transformed to the point where it can actually be used. Such energy is usually electric, which implies a great economic cost as well as greenhouse gas emissions, since it is usually of non-renewable origin. Today, rural areas are unpopulated, but this habit must begin to change. In addition, rural areas comprise the largest amount of crops on the planet.

Sustainable Energy Systems are the solution to many of the problems of the growth of energy demand, and, therefore, their sustainable development must begin to proliferate. These systems must be supported by renewable generation sources, distributed storage and new control and management techniques. Sustainable Energy Systems should be implemented in modern agriculture and rural areas, allowing in the latter a more efficient and sustainable electrification.

With this scenario, this Special Issue is focused on electrification and sustainable energy systems to achieve an improvement in agriculture and rural areas. These developments will allow for a more sustainable and efficient agricultural system and rural areas.

Prof. Dr. Luis Hernández-Callejo
Prof. Dr. Miguel-Ángel Muñoz-García
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • sustainable energy systems in agricultural and rural areas
  • microgrids in agricultural and rural areas
  • electrification in agriculture
  • rural electrification
  • distributed storage
  • wind energy
  • photovoltaics
  • hydraulic
  • agrivoltaics
  • solar energy
  • solar pumping
  • soiling
  • remote solar sensors
  • remote sensing
  • greenhouses
  • rural microgrid

Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

19 pages, 31273 KiB  
Article
Analysis of Weed Communities in Solar Farms Located in Tropical Areas—The Case of Malaysia
by Mohammad Effendy Ya’acob, Li Lu, Frisco Nobilly, Nik Norasma Che’Ya, Ammar Abdul Aziz, Christian Dupraz, Muhammad Syafiq Yahya, Sharifah Nur Atikah and Mohammad Abdullah Al. Mamun
Agronomy 2022, 12(12), 3073; https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy12123073 - 04 Dec 2022
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2357
Abstract
Weed management in large-scale solar photovoltaic (LSS-PV) farms has become a great concern to the solar industry due to scarcity of labour and the ever-increasing price of pesticides, which opens up possibilities for integrated farming, also known as agrivoltaics. Improper weed control may [...] Read more.
Weed management in large-scale solar photovoltaic (LSS-PV) farms has become a great concern to the solar industry due to scarcity of labour and the ever-increasing price of pesticides, which opens up possibilities for integrated farming, also known as agrivoltaics. Improper weed control may have multiple negative impacts such as permanent shading of the module surface, pest housing which damages communication cables, and even bush fires. The shaded PV modules can be heated up to extreme temperatures, causing costly burn-out damage. Critical information on the types of weeds on solar farms, especially in Malaysia, has not been established to support the concept of weed management. Thus, with this study, detailed composition of the weed community was obtained via quadrat sampling between solar PV modules, near ground equipment, near perimeter fencing, and directly underneath the PV modules. Weed-control measures via high-quality weedmat installation under solar PV arrays have been implemented where this approach can be considered effective on solar farms based on the existing PV structure height and equipment constraints plus the increasing cost for labour and agricultural inputs. This work underlines the proposed Agrivoltaic for Large Scale Solar (Agrivoltaic4LSS) program to complement the solar industry in Malaysia towards an agrivoltaic, eco-friendly approach to weed management. Full article
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