Solar panels and vines, a good marriage? Study launched in Bordeaux

The project, called Vitisolar, takes the form of photovoltaic panels that tilt according to the position of the sun, installed on a metal structure itself placed several meters above the rows of Merlot vines.

Located on the site of the Institute of Vine and Wine Sciences, the test plot covers 2.000 square meters.

The structure, built without concrete by the Arcelor-Mittal group at the request of the project instigators, will notably protect the vines from hail, without depriving them of sun and rain.

“The structure will in fact modify the distribution of water on the vineyard, but the water will still be distributed evenly,” assured Abraham Escobar-Gutierrez, president of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine-Poitiers center of the National Institute of research for agriculture, food and the environment (INRAE).

“We gave ourselves five years to see what this does for the vintages. We are based on the hypothesis that the vines will suffer more from climate change without the panels than under the panels,” predicted Mr. Escobar-Gutierrez.

The installation was placed above a plot which is already around ten years old, and which has already been extensively studied, which will facilitate the comparison of data with post-photovoltaic installation production.

Associated with this project, EDF had already launched similar agrivoltaic projects on alfalfa and squash fields on its Renardières site, in Seine-et-Marne, but this is its first concerning vines.