HarvRESt (Harnessing the vast potential of RES for sustainable farming)
Competitive conflicts for land use between the energy and food sectors have appeared, which could be mitigated by the vertical integration of RES in farms through new circular business models. By this approach, farms will become climate neutral, optimising their production and reducing their impact on natural resources and biodiversity, on top of providing energy services to communities and diversifying their economic income. However, there is a need to identify, understand and overcome major existing barriers perceived by agricultural communities. Moreover, current initiatives do not to effectively consider and address the complex interactions and factors from the farming and RES context, thus missing to support decision making based on accurate projections, estimations and forecasts.
HarvRESt will work on these needs by improving the existing knowledge and its fragmented status, which will be feed to an Agricultural.
Virtual Power Plant able to run different scenarios and farm configurations to determine the best operation procedures for a given RES solution. This data will be then provided to a decision support system able to weight trade-offs and key indicators to provide ad-hoc recommendations to farmers and policy makers, thus enabling the consecution of improved production rates on renewable energy, food & feed within agro communities. For the successful execution of HarvRESt and implementation of recommendations, a multi-actor approach fostering co-creation sessions together with the provision of training materials for farmers empowerment will be implemented.
The full approach of HarvRESt will be supported and executed at 4 use cases representing different topologies of farms, a diversity of stakeholders and organizational structures, distinct geographical conditions and a wide variety of RES technologies. Together with HarvRESt community and mapped initiatives, the project will act as a hub for knowledge and best-practices on RES
integration at farm level.
Duration:
11st January 2024 – 31st December 2026
Participants:
- Fundacion CIRCE
- Fundacio Universitaria Balmes
- Norwegian Research Centre NORCE
- Tecnoalimenti SCpA
- White Research Srl
- Suite5 Data Intelligence Solutions Limited
- Engreen Srl
- Conterra Aps
- Confagricoltura
- Vinas Del Vero Sa
- Acsa Obras E Infraestructuras Sau
- Gronn Gardsenergi As
- Fbcd As
- Climate-Kic Holding Bv
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