Given the growing pressures of climate change on vineyards and competition for the soil of the last decades, the project aims to protect vineyards from harmful weather phenomena, while contemporarily harvesting energy through photovoltaic panels.
Global warming is leading to an intensification in rainfall, droughts, hailstorms, windstorms and spring frosts, which can highly damage vineyards1, therefore protective systems are needed, such as the commonly used anti-hail nets. In addition, proper land use is an increasingly difficult issue, because of the conflict between sustainable energy production through photovoltaics panels and the need to maintain high agricultural productivity, which is leading to the development of the Agri-Voltaic field, to create a synergy between the two kinds of land use2.
The NODe4RESA (New Origami Design for Renewable Energy & Smart Agriculture) solution considers both these needs, and, to do so, is based on the implementation of deployable coverage integrated with an Agri-Voltaic system, exploiting an origami-based design.
The origami-based cover is realized through anti-hail nets and a light aluminum support, with an array of mountain and valley folds, to enhance fast and efficient deployment and to reduce the shadow on the crops in the closed configuration, while a solar tracking system is implemented to maximize energy production. Materials and techniques are defined to reduce the environmental impact, still guaranteeing high durability in the agricultural environment.
The expected outcome is a light modular system, which com-plies with the protection requirements and the need to reduce the carbon emissions in the energy production field.
In addition, it can easily be customized, according to the requirements of a specific region.
The economic feasibility is analyzed, thus, a first-generation business model is provided, to collocate the solution on the Agri-Voltaic market while reducing vineyards owners’ effort.
Academic Tutors:
Stefano Mariani (Politecnico di Milano)
Stefano Invernizzi (Politecnico di Torino)
Valter Carvelli (Politecnico di Milano)
External Tutor:
Pascal Terrien, Former Director of EIFER
Emiliano Descrovi, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) Department of Electronic Systems
Hamid Akbarzadeh, McGill University – Bioresource Engineering and Mechanical Engineering Departments
Philippe Carer, EDF R&D / MIRE Department
Angela Casertano, EDF R&D – International Direction