The future of solar in Europe is multipurpose — and agrivoltaics will lead it

Europe’s next phase of solar development will not be built by choosing between clean energy, productive farmland, and resilient rural economies. It will be built by designing projects that support all three.

That is the direction Dr. Stephan Schindele, one of the leading experts in agrivoltaics, sees emerging across the continent. He brings many years of experience across solar research, product management, project development, and energy policy, including work at Fraunhofer ISE and BayWa r.e. Global.

In his view, multipurpose solar is not a side category within the energy transition. On farmland, it could become the default way to develop PV.

“I think it is going to be the future standard of PV on farmland,” Schindele said. He expects that shift to become increasingly visible from the early to mid-2030s, as more commercial projects move from development pipelines into operation.

The prediction matters because Europe needs to add renewable generation while protecting food production, adapting agriculture to a changing climate, and maintaining public support for infrastructure built in rural areas. Agrivoltaics connects those priorities on the same site. But it only works when the solar system is integrated into the farming process — not added to it as an afterthought.

Conventional ground-mounted solar usually gives a site one primary function: producing electricity. The land is fenced, modules are installed, and the original farming process largely stops inside the project boundary.

Agrivoltaics changes the development objective. Agricultural activity continues, while the PV system becomes part of the farm’s operating model. That can mean crops between rows, fruit beneath elevated structures, grazing around conventional-looking arrays, or solar integrated with greenhouses and other agricultural infrastructure.

The shared land is important, but the deeper shift is how the project is conceived. Developers are no longer optimizing one output in isolation. They are working with farmers, agronomists, engineers, authorities, and energy-market stakeholders to determine what the land should deliver over decades.

That collaboration is increasingly relevant as climate adaptation becomes part of rural investment. Heat, drought, intense rainfall, and soil degradation are creating new costs for farmers. At the same time, the transition toward regenerative practices, improved water management, or new machinery requires capital.

Schindele describes the opportunity as going “beyond the fence.” Rather than evaluating only the solar parcel, developers can look at the wider farm: what the farmer needs, where grid access is available, which land can support continued production, and how project income could strengthen the whole agricultural business.

This is one reason multipurpose development can earn greater acceptance. A project can generate renewable electricity while maintaining farming, creating a more stable income stream, and supporting local climate resilience.

The economics and ecological outcomes remain site-specific, but the value proposition is wider than a land lease alone.

Agrivoltaics is often represented by one striking image: solar modules raised several meters above crops. Those systems are real, but they are only one end of a much broader spectrum.

On permanent grassland, sheep or poultry can continue agricultural use with limited changes to the PV layout. On arable land, row spacing, turning areas, and ground clearance must accommodate machinery and crop rotations. Berries, apples, and other specialized crops may need elevated or semi-transparent systems that manage sunlight and protect plants from weather extremes.

“It depends on what type of farming process you want to maintain,” Schindele said. “You have to integrate the PV system into that farming process.”

That distinction matters commercially. It prevents the category from being reduced to its most structurally intensive applications. Some agrivoltaic systems carry higher upfront costs because they use taller structures, specialized modules, or dynamic controls. Others can stay much closer to familiar ground-mount configurations.

In grazing projects, agricultural activity may also replace part of the conventional vegetation-management workload. Maintaining agricultural land status can affect leases, taxation, and permitting, depending on the local framework. These factors mean agrivoltaic economics should be evaluated by system type and jurisdiction — not through one blanket cost assumption.

For a technical overview of system types, design constraints, crop suitability, and implementation, read our agrivoltaics technical guide.

Agrivoltaics is gaining attention partly because it offers policymakers an alternative to a simple land-use trade-off. Productive soils do not have to leave agriculture entirely to contribute to the energy transition. Projects can be structured around continued agricultural activity and assessed against national requirements for land use, crop output, or system design.

The details differ across Europe.

• France has established a legal definition intended to protect agricultural purpose.

• Germany has used technical standards to distinguish agrivoltaic systems from conventional solar parks.

• Italy has supported advanced agrivoltaic development through dedicated funding and regulation.

Across markets, the common direction is clearer recognition of dual use.

Schindele sees this policy movement as a response to more than emissions targets. Rural areas host much of Europe’s renewable infrastructure, while also carrying the direct effects of climate change. Supporting cooperation between energy and agriculture can help those regions adapt rather than simply host new assets.

He points to France as a leading indicator, where he observes that a large majority of projects proposed on farmland are now being developed with an agrivoltaic model. That figure should be treated as an expert market observation rather than a harmonized European statistic. The broader signal is still significant: in some markets, proving continued agricultural value is becoming central to gaining permission and support for solar on farmland.

For country-level context and earlier policy developments, see Agrivoltaics in Europe: a closer look at the facts and figures.

The most common objection to agrivoltaics is cost. Elevated systems can require more steel, specialized equipment, and longer authorization processes. Those costs are real. But treating every agrivoltaic project as an elevated horticultural system obscures the economics of simpler applications.

Schindele argues that grazing systems can be among the lowest-cost forms of agrivoltaics because the solar design may change very little while farming continues. Livestock can handle vegetation management, and continued agricultural classification can influence long-term operating costs. Inter-row systems for machinery and crops may require wider pitch or greater clearance, but can remain close to standard ground-mounted design.

At the other end of the spectrum, elevated systems above orchards or berries carry a structural premium. Their value case must account for more than electricity: crop protection, reduced heat stress, water management, agricultural yield, and access to land or support mechanisms that would not apply to conventional PV.

This makes one metric especially useful: land equivalent ratio, or land use efficiency (LUE). Instead of asking whether the solar output equals a densely packed conventional array, it evaluates the combined agricultural and energy production from the shared hectare against producing them separately.

A broader explanation of those outcomes is available in Agrivoltaics: the benefits of solar power and agriculture.

Once a project has two productive systems on the same land, design decisions carry consequences in both directions. Increasing row spacing may improve crop access and light distribution but reduce installed PV capacity. Raising modules can accommodate machinery or fruit production but increase structural requirements. Tracker behavior can affect energy yield, crop exposure, wind protection, and rain distribution.

The engineering challenge is not simply to maximize solar generation and accept whatever agricultural outcome remains. It is to define acceptable performance for both systems, then test designs against those objectives.

That requires close agricultural expertise. Software cannot decide which crop belongs on a farm or replace agronomic monitoring. It can, however, give the team a shared digital representation of the site and help it compare options before expensive commitments are made.

• Terrain-aware layouts can test row spacing, height, structure placement, access routes, and clearance.

• Shading and yield models can evaluate how design changes affect solar production and the distribution of light across the site.

• Connected workflows also help teams avoid rebuilding assumptions as a project moves from site evaluation into detailed engineering and energy modeling.

This is where multipurpose solar becomes scalable. The industry has already proven that dual use can work. The next step is making the process more repeatable without reducing every farm to the same template.

There will always be appropriate sites for single-purpose solar: industrial land, rooftops, degraded land, deserts, and other locations where active agriculture is not the central consideration. Agrivoltaics does not need to replace them.

The shift is narrower and more consequential. On productive European farmland, developers will increasingly need to explain how a project supports the land’s agricultural role rather than simply displacing it. As more farmers and authorities gain experience with operating projects, multipurpose design can move from novel to normal.

Schindele expects Europe to see gigawatts of new agrivoltaic capacity as today’s pipelines reach construction. He believes that, from roughly 2032 to 2035 onward, the model could become the standard for PV development on farmland.

That forecast will depend on clearer regulation, viable grid connections, durable commercial models, agricultural evidence, and designs that work in everyday farming conditions. It is not guaranteed. But the direction is credible because it aligns incentives that conventional development often keeps separate.

Farmers need stable income and tools to adapt. Europe needs more renewable electricity. Authorities need projects that preserve productive land and earn local support. Agrivoltaics gives those needs a common project framework.

The question for solar on farmland may soon change.

Instead of asking why a project should serve more than one purpose, developers may need to explain why valuable land has been designed to serve only one.