To be built for €340 million ($400 million), the Agrosolar Kula project is touted by its project partners to be the 1st agrivoltaic project in Serbia and in the Balkans. It will also be the largest in Europe, according to Serbian wind energy independent power producer (IPP) Fintel Energija, which is wholly owned subsidiary of Italian renewable energy company Fintel Energija Group SpA.
To be built by Fintel in partnership with investment manager MK Group, the agrivoltaic project is planned to generate close to 832 GWh of energy annually, however the partners did not specify the exact capacity of the project. In the initial phase, they expect the facility to cover 700 hectares of land in Kula, divided into 7 zones for various organic crops and where solar panels will be installed in regular rows with enough distance between them to allow for agricultural activities to be performed.
The partners plan to break ground on site in Kula municipality of Serbia in April 2022 and expect to complete the project within a year's time.
Fintel Energy's CEO Tiziano Giovannetti praised agrivoltaics that he believes helps in optimizing land use while also improving productivity of agricultural production, reducing carbon emissions as well as water consumption for irrigation.
Serbia's government is encouraging the deployment of PV systems on agricultural land through incentives, under a joint initiative with the World Bank. In May 2021, the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Water Management launched the 1st call to award €38 million in all for competitive agricultural projects (see Serbia Providing Subsidies For Agrivoltaic Projects).
As the word clarifies, agrivoltaics combines solar PV technology with agricultural practices, a combination that's gaining pace of late. In August 2019, Oregon State University found croplands, grasslands and wetlands as best to promote agrivoltaics (see Farmlands Most Productive For Solar Panels, Claims Study).