A farmer prefers to have solar panels on his land before wheat crops since he generates more benefit. There are many farmers who leave their classic crops to rent their land to solar energy companies and multiply their income. The Spanish rural landscape is transformed silently due to the energy transition and there are more and more solar panels or wind towers in our fields. This adds to the already extended use of solar panels in the houses, where they began to be installed to save on the electricity bill.
In places like Seville, what was previously sown with wheat or sunflower, today begins to be filled with photovoltaic panels under a sun that, now, is monetized better than ever. They are the so -called solar plants and represent the expansion of renewable energies through the Spanish territory. Something that is also driven by the increase in the price of electricity, which makes it a profitable business, or interest in a more sustainable energy model.
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One of the places he has seen how his hectares of agriculture are transformed into solar fields is Carmona, where José Portillo, owner of 15 hectares who has rented for one of the many photovoltaic projects of the region is clear why this change is being given: “Before I took 100 euros per hectare during the harvest, now they pay me 1,900 euros,” he says. And there was a time when the lands were dedicated to crops of pipes, wheat and chickpeas, but this seems to be changing. Of course, your decision has not been easy, although very profitable: “That money will come to you wonder and do things that I have never been able to,” he clarifies.
Carmona is living an authentic ‘photovoltaic’ boom, with up to 28 projects in progress that could report millions of euros to the town thanks to the lease of land by farmers, as explained by its mayor in a report of the Research Team Program recently.
The surface for crop has been reduced by 20 or 30%
In Carmona, where about 92,000 hectares of agricultural area are counted, the replacement of crops with solar facilities has become an upward trend. Although the transformation does not convince everyone, the economic factor has been decisive to boost it. “There has been a big stir because of a lifetime people have been cultivating their lands and now they have been giving you money for being …”, explains a neighbor, who admits that the surface dedicated to crop in the area has been reduced by 20% and 30%.
The tradition of cultivating the land and the profitability that offers it to large renewable energy companies live a constant struggle in which many farmers have chosen their new path. For some, this trend is a threat to the traditional agricultural model; For others, it represents an opportunity for progress. The indisputable thing is that solar energy has ceased to be the exclusive heritage of urban roofs: it has now reached the countryside … and it seems to stay.