News
/ 21 October 2020
Natur’Tech, France’s national leading competition for agricultural innovation, has awarded Sun’Agri the Pink Lady prize for “Adaptation to Climate Change”. One year after receiving the gold medal at the SITEVI Innovation Awards, Sun’Agri has thus once again been recognised by its peers for its ground-breaking technology for adapting agriculture to climate change.
“Our technology continues to attract interest from the agricultural and scientific communities. This award is further proof that dynamic agrivoltaics is one of the most promising solutions for the adaptation of agriculture to climate change.” Antoine Nogier, founder of Sun’Agri
Launched in 2018, the Natur’Tech competition rewards new techniques, technologies, digital tools and alternative inputs for a more natural, sustainable and intelligent agriculture. It is supported by the Innov’Alliance competitiveness cluster, a network of companies, researchers and educational institutions from the agricultural, food, cosmetics and perfume sectors. The competition jury, comprising representatives from the Innov’Alliance cluster, INRAE, the Chamber of Agriculture of the Provence Alpes Côte d’Azur region, Naturex by Givaudan, French Tech Grande Provence, Obratori, L’Occitane Innovation Lab and Pink Lady, awarded Sun’Agri the Pink Lady prize for “Adaptation to Climate Change”.
During the Natur’Tech awards ceremony, Antoine Legrain, CSR Project Manager for Pink Lady Europe, congratulated Sun’Agri on the prize and its innovative system: “The idea of combining crop protection and energy production in orchards is highly innovative. We will be very interested to work with you to develop this technology and see how it can be adapted to different production areas.”
The Sun’Agri technology is an agricultural tool for climate protection in the areas most affected by climate change, consisting of controlled louvres and a structure for hail protection nets and trellises. This automated tool protects crops from the effects of climate change by creating a microclimate that is tailored to their needs. The aim is to safeguard the quality and quantity of harvests, despite the weather hazards that threaten farmers’ activities (hail, heavy rain, frost, excess sunshine and lack of water) while producing solar energy. It provides an innovative solution to support farmers in the evolution of their production techniques.
This technology is set to grow significantly in France over the next few years, since 19 agrivoltaic projects were selected in a tender launched by the French Energy Regulation Commission (CRE) last April. The tender focused on the construction and operation of innovative electricity production facilities based on solar energy. In 2018, Sun’Agri inaugurated the world’s first full-scale dynamic agrivoltaic installation in Tresserre in the south of France.
