80 per cent of Europe’s land surface has been shaped by human activities: covered with buildings, roads, industrial infrastructure, or used for agriculture. With demand increasing for enough land to be provided to meet various spatial requirements, multifunctional land use. This is an opportunity supported by Vattenfall in a variety of ways.

“We must rethink how we use land efficiently to enable the energy transition, minimise our footprint, and secure more space for wild nature – all at the same time. Our approach here is to focus on multi-use of sites, while at the same time incorporating the equally important nature-inclusive considerations in our designs,” says Helle Herk-Hansen, Head of Environment at Vattenfall.

“In our distribution business, for instance, we work actively to enhance biodiversity in our power line corridors and in our hydro power business, we work on restoring rivers in northern Sweden to protect species in and along the rivers. At our offshore wind farms, we proactively protect marine species and habitats through features such as water replenishment holes in the monopiles and rock reefs on top of the scour protection.”

Co-location of different energy facilities such as wind, solar, and batteries that utilise the same infrastructure, is another way of making responsible use of space. Vattenfall recently joined forces with the agricultural sector to share the land for dual purposes.

Sharing the space – solar and agriculture

Farmland covered 29 per cent of the total land in the EU in 2020 and critics of ground-mounted photovoltaic (PV) systems sometimes argue that they take up valuable farmland needed for food production. However, so far the impact of solar PV on farmland is negligible so, and even in the largest build-out scenarios, it is projected to cover only a very small fraction of land in the EU, preferably non-arable land or land with weak soil conditions.

In more southern parts of Europe, solar PV systems could even have a very beneficial effect, since they reduce evaporation. One of the biggest issues in renewable energy production is local acceptance, and this is where we see the biggest benefits of the combination.

“At two of Vattenfall’s latest solar parks, Tützpatz in Germany and Symbizon in the Netherlands, local acceptance is indeed very high,” explains Claus Wattendrup, Head of Solar at Vattenfall.

“These parks are based on the so-called agri-PV systems where agriculture and energy production co-exist. Agri-PV combines solar power output with food production and, as a bonus, it provides an additional source of income for farmers.”

The Tützpatz site is one of the largest agri-PV projects in Europe to date and will feature nearly 150,000 solar modules with a total output of over 80 MW. It is divided into three sections that will serve different purposes. A significant portion of Tützpatz 1 will be used for poultry farming, potentially housing up to 15,000 chickens.

In the areas designated for the chickens, the solar modules are mounted at a steeper angle and higher elevation than conventional rows. The steeper angle prevents the chickens from flying onto the modules.

In the other two sections of the Tützpatz site, arable farming will continue. To enable this the solar panels are mounted on an axis, allowing them to follow the sun’s path throughout the day for maximum power generation. A similar approach is being tested in the small 0.7 MWp Dutch Symbizon test agri-PV project, where the modules can be set to a very steep position during harvest and cultivation, allowing large agricultural machines to manoeuvre in between the rows.

At the agri-PV park Symbizon, the current set-up makes it possible to examine how various distances affect the shadow panels cast on the crops. Large scale arable crops such as oats, potatoes, beans, onions, red beets, celery are grown between panels. 

Wind, seaweed, and mussels – a sustainable mix

Seaweed grown at Kriegers Flak. Photo: Teis Boderskov.

As wind turbines at sea cover larger and larger areas, Vattenfall started to investigate the potential of combining offshore wind with the production of seaweed and mussels. It is a pilot study at one of northern Europe’s largest offshore wind farms – Vattenfall’s Danish Kriegers Flak. How well the different seaweed species grow in waters with low salt contents will be tested to see how one effectively can combine the two very different industries. The project is carried out in collaboration with a range of partners, including universities, the Kerteminde Seafarm, and the public aquarium Kattegatcentret.

In the summer of 2024, the first seaweed was harvested at Kriegers Flak. Cultivation of seaweed does not only provide a sustainable food source, it can also improve the water quality through the uptake of nutrients and CO₂ from the surrounding marine environment.

Combining sectors can results in outcomes that are beneficial for both climate and biodiversity while reducing the pressure on terrestrial and aquatic land use.