Lagrivoltaism is the main innovation of the law of March 10, 2023 relating to the acceleration of the production of renewable energies. The technique is defined as the installation of photovoltaic modules on agricultural plots to which they provide a positive service, without reducing their productive capacity. Highly awaited by professionals in the sector, an implementing decree must specify the terms of the system.
Heavy with economic issues, this text was the subject of long negotiations. Compared to the first versions of the draft decree, the latest interministerial arbitrations reveal a real imbalance in favor of energy production and to the detriment of agricultural production.
As it stands, the decree poses, in our opinion, risks to agricultural land, to the legal security of projects, and to the entire agrivoltaic sector. An essential condition of agrivoltaism is that it ensures sustainable and significant agricultural production.
Setting up a control zone
To assess this, the draft decree makes a distinction between “proven technologies”, which will be listed by a decree, and the others. Only the latter must include a control zone or provide proof of a similar agrivoltaic installation existing at the departmental or regional level. The average yield observed should, in this case, not drop by more than 10% compared to that of the control or reference zone.
Initially envisaged as systematic, the establishment of a control zone will ultimately be easy to avoid by invoking the existence of other installations, sometimes distant. And even if it is created, it will in practice be impossible to verify that it is cultivated optimally (use of fertilizers, for example).
More generally, we see a contradiction in asserting that installations must provide a positive service to agricultural plots (by increasing their productivity in principle), while we concede reductions in yield. Agrivoltaism, moreover, assumes that agriculture retains a main place.
A risk of land artificialization
To attest to this, the draft decree provides for a maximum coverage rate for the installation, presented as a ratio between the projected ground surface of the modules and the surface of the plot. The text sets it, by default, at 40% maximum (plants of more than 10 MW). Knowing that for “proven technologies” he may even go further by way of decree. That’s the whole problem.
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