The installation can produce the equivalent of the electricity consumption of 2,000 homes while allowing cultivation on 2 hectares. The innovative solution helps develop Mayotte's solar potential while preserving its fertile lands. However, it requires flat terrain.
Since the start of the year, it has helped to charge your cell phone, run your washing machine, and light up our streets. Every day, the Ironi Bé photovoltaic greenhouse injects the electricity it produces into the island's network.
Upstairs, on its roofs, solar panels with a total power of 1.5 MW. Below, on the land which it protects from bad weather, the banana trees are beginning to give their first bunches. The fruit of 10 years of patient work for its promoter, the French company Akuvo:
“It was a long-term project, through persuasion and with the other examples of greenhouses that we were able to build, this anticyclonic greenhouse finally came out of the ground”Xavier Ducret – Managing Director of Akuvo Indian Ocean. The facility is the fifth the company has originated in the Indian Ocean.
Designed to withstand winds of up to 240 km/h, the anticyclonic greenhouse is equipped with a 2000 m3 tank coupled with a rainwater recovery system. It allows crops to be irrigated for 3 months without precipitation.
Another essential storage tool for the installation, a 4MW/h battery. It smoothes the injection of electricity into the network. And at peak consumption time on the island, between 7 p.m. and 9 p.m., the installation supports demand while the solar panels have stopped producing.
It is the Baubet family, breeders and farmers, who own the 2 hectares of installation. She receives an annuity for the use of her land, and the company underwrites the entire construction. Akuvo plans to amortize its investment with the sale of electricity over the next 20 years. All that remains for the owners is to find the right crops to grow in these new greenhouses:
“We're trying bananas for now, but we're also going to try fig trees. We need to find a profitable production that does not consume too much sun” Pierre Baubet – Farmer farmer, owner of the land.
In fact, the rays that the panels use to produce electricity are less light for growing plants.
The panels have a lifespan of approximately 25 years and the structure 50 years. The only problem is that this type of installation requires relatively flat land. A rare commodity on the island.
