Solar Panels Aim to Protect Mexican Family Farming

The public National Autonomous University of Mexico operates a demonstration agrovoltaic plot to study the effects of the mixture of solar energy and crops in the town of San Miguel Topilejo, in the south of Mexico City. Credit: Emilio Godoy / IPS

By Emilio Godoy
SAN MIGEL TOPILEJO, Mexico, Sep 26 2024 (IPS)

Verónica Molina, an indigenous Comcaac woman, first came into contact with solar energy in 2016, when she travelled to India for training on communal photovoltaic facilities. This later enabled her to take part in the installation of the first solar systems and family vegetable gardens in her community, Desemboque del Seri, in northern Mexico.

Later on, she was invited to the project Energy, Water and Food Security for Indigenous Peoples in Semi-Arid Coastal Regions of Northern Mexico, sponsored by the governmental National Council of Humanities, Science and Technology (Conahcyt), which began in 2022.

“We plant vegetables, because there are no other seeds to use. They are for self-consumption. With the panels, we pay less for energy, and with the gardens we save money on vegetables,” the solar activist told IPS from Desemboque del Seri, some 1,900 kilometres from Mexico City.

“We realised that they had health, economy, food, and land issues. We looked for comprehensive solutions, aligned with the budget. They have the sea or the desert, it's an extremely arid place,” Rodolfo Peón.
In addition to producing their own electricity, the participating families harvest a variety of vegetables in Desemboque and neighbouring Punta Chueca, Comcaac territories inhabited by some 1,200 people on the coast of the state of Sonora, and one of Mexico’s 69 indigenous peoples, who also fish.

While the panels cover between 25% and 75% of a household’s consumption, each of the more than 40 family gardens provides between 100 and 200 kilograms of vegetables for each of the two annual harvest seasons.

The region suffers from marginalisation, poverty and disease. In contrast, it receives a daily solar irradiation of 5.9 kWh/m2 and an annual rainfall of 200 millilitres, which makes seasonal agriculture difficult.

The initiative consists of a hybrid system that combines photovoltaic generation and food production, located under the panels to harness the sun, shade and dew that they capture during the night, which is in vogue in countries such as Germany, Brazil and the United States.

This eco-technology is still in its infancy in Mexico, and it is unknown how many systems are in operation in the country. The Mexican Agrovoltaic Network is preparing a census to determine their status.

In fact, the Strategic Plan on Climate Change for the Agri-Food Sector includes among its goals the use of solar panels for electricity generation.

Mitigation

“We realised that they had health, economy, food, and land issues. We looked for comprehensive solutions, aligned with the budget. They have the sea or the desert, it’s an extremely arid place,” Rodolfo Peón told IPS from Hermosillo, the capital of Sonora.

“We saw that agriculture was an alternative to improve their diet and provide electricity,” added the researcher from the Department of Industrial Engineering at the public University of Sonora, referring to the project in the Comcáac territory.

This is how the agrovoltaic scheme, the only low-cost solution for the area, came on the scene.

Funded by Conahcyt’s National Strategic Programmes with some 450,000 dollars, the project addresses the components of energy, water, food, health, biodiversity and territorial defence.

Since 2018, the government has been driving, with little success, for internal capacity (sovereignty) in food production for Mexico’s population of some 130 million people.

Mexico currently ranks 11th in the world in food production. During the first seven months of this year it exported more agri-foods than in the same period last year, although it also bought more, albeit in an agricultural balance with a surplus.

The country is highly vulnerable to the effects of the climate crisis, such as drought, rising temperatures and the spread of pests.

As a result, producers of maize, beans, wheat, coffee and other traditional products are already suffering the impacts of phenomena such as this year’s acute water shortages, and will suffer even more negative impacts in the long term, with consequences for quality of life, income and the rural environment.

Latin America’s second largest economy has around six million rural production units, of which 75% are less than five hectares in size and only 6% have more than 20 hectares, supporting some 20 million people.

In addition, 79% of electricity generation depends on fossil fuels, followed by wind (7%), photovoltaic (4.5%), hydroelectric (4.4%) and nuclear (3.7%). According to the Electricity Transition Law, the country should generate 35% of its electricity from alternative sources by 2024, but this is a distant goal.

The administration of outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, which began in December 2018 and will end on 1 October, put the brakes on energy transition in order to strengthen the state-owned Federal Electricity Commission, which burns gas for electricity generation, and Petróleos Mexicanos, thus favouring fossil fuels.

The country has agrovoltaic potential, with 20 million hectares of land under cultivation and more than 10,000 megawatts of photovoltaic power, 70% of which is in extensive facilities.

Hybrid experiments

At a height of four metres, six modules of photovoltaic panels capture solar energy which, after passing through a converter, will be transformed into electricity.  Sheltered by them, 24 beds house pumpkin, lettuce and tomato crops, which benefit from protective shade, and rainwater and night dew caught by the panels.

This takes place in the Sustainable and Educational Agrovoltaic Plot (Pase), located in a corner of the Center for Practical Teaching and Research in Animal Production and Health of the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine and Animal Science of the public National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).

The centre is located in San Miguel Topilejo, a town in the municipality of Tlalpan, in the south of Mexico City.

At the facility visited by IPS, on the other side of a dirt road, stalled cattle graze while the photovoltaic system waits for the overcast skies to open up and bathe them in the sun’s nourishing rays.

On one side of the plot there are six more open-air beds to compare the results with those protected by the panels.

During an earlier tour of the facility, Aarón Sánchez, an academic at the Unam’s Institute of Renewable Energies and coordinator of the plot, explained that they are studying how crops develop under a photovoltaic roof that generates electricity.

He explained that they analyse their performance when there is a transpiration process in the lower part of the crops themselves, and the modules work at a lower temperature and higher efficiency.

Inaugurated in 2023, the Pase aims to increase the quality and quantity of agricultural products, generate green energy, reduce water consumption, and socialise new technologies among farmers.

The plot, which has a rainwater harvesting system with a 145 cubic metre tank to feed the drip irrigation system and temperature and humidity sensors, also involves the Mexico City government’s Ministry of Education, Science, Technology and Innovation.

An international consortium of institutions from the United States, France, Israel, Kenya, Morocco and Mexico is also participating.

Back in Sonora, Molina and Peón called for more support to expand the systems.

“We can ask for more support, because some families in the community have not had access to the agrovoltaic garden. Hopefully the project can be continued”, the community photovoltaic expert said.

Peón believes the results are promising, but much remains to be done.

“We hope that there will be a federal programme to support indigenous peoples. There has to be a change in the rules of the game (for people to generate their own energy in greater volumes),” he said.

“There needs to be synergy between the energy and agricultural sectors, so that we can see large-scale projects”, he added.