A special action on the part of the Ministry of Rural Development and Food could support the installation of agro-voltaics in many areas of the country with greenhouses. This may be one of the next issues on the ministry's "agenda", as argued by Christiana Kalogirou, the secretary general of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry. These statements were made at a Workshop on Agrovoltaics held recently in Athens. As he said, this is the next "big thing".

"The use of agrovoltaics ensures energy, water, land savings, while reducing the carbon footprint." This was noted, among others, by the president of the HOPE-A Association of Companies, Professor Stergios Logothetidis, speaking at the event held in the context of Agrotica on the topic:

Agrovoltaics: A revolution in energy production while simultaneously increasing agricultural production and reducing water use with ^3rd generation translucent photovoltaics.

The world's only pilot production line

The world's only pilot production line operates in Tagarades, Thessaloniki. The world's first 3^rd generation photovoltaic production plant will soon be installed.

The pilot greenhouse of the Greek company Organic Electronic Technologies (spin out company of the LTFN Laboratory of AUTH), in which hydroponic tomatoes are produced with particularly positive results, is also covered with this type of flexible, translucent and particularly light third generation photovoltaics manufactured in Greece .

As explained by Mr. Logothetides, the use of 3^rd generation photovoltaics in greenhouses (agro-voltaics):

• maximizes the use of space
• saves energy and water
• drastically reduces the cost of running the greenhouse
• increases production
• reduces carbon footprint and labor costs
• is an ideal energy self-sufficiency solution in remote or off-grid areas

Crete and Western Macedonia for agrovoltaics

"Crete with the greenhouse facilities it already has can produce in 10 years 4 GW of energy from photovoltaics, while the production of tomatoes with the use of hydroponics can increase up to 5 times and at the same time reduce the use of water three times.

Regarding the Western Macedonia which is in the process of delignitization with the use of agrovoltaics can not only solve her energy problem, but also to create many high paying jobs for young farmers/entrepreneurs, to simultaneously increase its production and exports", explained the president of HOPE-A Stergios Logothetides.