Adrian Mihai, agricultura.video
Farmer Theodor Ichim from Constanta county, president of FAPPR, considers it a very good thing to install photovoltaic panels near silos to produce the electricity they need. A private irrigation system can also be powered from this source. In fact, he already has such an irrigation system.
At the time of commissioning, the electricity tariff was three times higher than at the start of the investment. Under these conditions, the business would become unprofitable, which led him to decide to invest in a photovoltaic park. Even if it didn’t produce the full amount needed, irrigated crops could still be profitable. The calculations are not simple. He estimates that the irrigation period is 100 days a year. “Since I rely heavily on renewable energy, I have to calculate a complex irrigation system so that I can use all the sunlight throughout the year to get the right amount of water to my plants,” says the farmer. The system has to bring water not only during the plant’s consumption period, but also for replenishment when the land is not cultivated and even to be stored in lagoons. The water must not go back into the water table, nor be lost through evaporation, so the plant layer is important. A system of photovoltaic panels thus leads to fine-tuning of activities on the farm.
Ichim thinks it’s good that the system is connected to the national grid on a prosumer basis, even if he tries to plan so that grid injection is the last option. “My interest is to use all the energy there, in my field, because even when I buy it from the grid, even if I produced it myself, I still pay transmission and grid maintenance charges,” he explains.