The work conducted in HarvRESt will be supported and executed at 5 use cases located in Italy, Denmark, Spain and Norway, representing different topologies of farms, a diversity of stakeholders and organizational structures, distinct geographical conditions and a wide variety of RES technologies. Together with HarvRESt community and mapped initiatives, the project will act as a hub for knowledge and best practices on RES integration at farm level. 

In the following a short introduction of the HarvRESt use cases are provided, however, if you are interested in taking a closer look at the use cases, you can read the newly published report “Mapping of RES integration in farms at EU level”. Here you can find general information on each use case, their agricultural activities, a RES characterisation as well as information on expected outcomes.  
 

Italy Use Case

In this use case, main agro-industrial, farmers and industrial associations join forces to jointly address RES integration at farm level along the whole agri-food value chain, aiming to exhibit a low carbon footprint food system in large-scale trade and transferring its benefits to final consumers.

The key objective is that, along the project execution, involved associations will jointly bring stakeholders to gather available information, interests and perceptions on barriers on RES integration at farm level and how it can impact or create synergies all along the food value chain and its logistics.

Denmark Use Case

The Danish use case counts with already established datasets on RES production at farm level with special focus on biogas production. In the last years, overall economic boundary conditions have been beneficial for large scale biogas plants deployment over the country, but recent developments in energy costs as well as demands arising from EU-Taxonomy/ESG makes small scale biogas plants increasingly interesting to individual or groups of farmers. Accordingly, it is expected to count with additional reports on this regard along the project execution.

The main objectives are: the Biogas planning tool will be enhanced as a comprehensive database at farm level (barn/field) for Denmark; and new developments will allow the mapping of current activity level and potentials for biogas fuelled energy production, evaluating its impact on GHG-emission and nutrient balances (N and P). 

Spain Use Cases

Viñas del Vero and Sorigué are two Spanish farming companies, a winery and a dairy company, respectively, at the forefront in the exploration of decarbonisation strategies and deployment of RES technologies in their farms.

The key objective is to apply HarvRESt solutions to enhance the production management and increase overall benefits with the lower environmental impact, as well as to produce necessary data to fill the identified knowledge gaps and deploy experimental solutions developed throughout the HarvRESt community.

At Viñas del Vero effects on vineyard production through a digital based management and optimization of RES assets will be assessed. These activities will also include the electrification of machinery, thus exploring the potential in terms of cost and carbon footprint reduction of electrification. Complementarily, an experimental report on Agro-PV will take place at Viñedos del Río Tajo vineyard in Toledo, to study the impact in relation to the identified KPIs (in this report) to dynamically feed the HarvRESt decision support system. Additionally, Sorigué’s bioproducts for improving soil quality will be tested on the site. 

At Sorigué the main interest is to collect data from the biorefinery to model the biogas production from agroresidues. Furthermore, the resulting by-product (the digestate) is currently considered one of the expected trade-offs. Thus, the fertilizer potential of the nutrients recovered from the digestate will be assessed in order to mitigate RES impacts, increase the circularity in the farm and diversify the farm incomes. The nutrient recovery will improve soil quality, water retention, and conservation. In addition, methane production from recycled CO2 sources to be used as fuel itself or as an H2 energy carrier will be analysed.

Norway Use Case

In this case Grønn Gårdsenergi AS (GGE) and NORCE will jointly analyse how to develop and expand a smart energy system that supports the full decarbonization process of GGE. A thorough analysis of the challenges for accessing the data in order to achieve centralized and optimized management of the assets composing the system will be performed.

The main objective is to manage the integration of the energy storage system interaction with the different renewable assets. Moreover, the study on the coordination with farm activities will be made to optimize available resources. Given the interest of GGE on profiting manure waste for biogas production and Combined Heat and Power installation, they will also establish synergies with Sorigué’s HarvRESt activities as well as with the Danish use case to explore the deployment of this technology and replication of the partner’s solutions. 

More information about the Use Cases

In the newly published HarvRESt report "Mapping of RES integration in farms at EU level" you can find general information on each use case, their agricultural activities, a RES characterisation as well as information on expected outcomes.