At the “La Estación” farm in the municipality of Santa Lucía de Tirajana, on Gran Canaria, rows of vertical structures have appeared over the past few weeks that at first glance look like two-metre fences. They’re actually bifacial solar panels, able to capture light on both sides, arranged vertically and facing north-south rather than tilted south as in conventional systems. It’s the centrepiece of an experimental project by the Instituto Canario de Investigaciones Agrarias (ICIA), backed by the Canary Islands government and unveiled to the press on 31 July.
The installation has sixty modules, with a total capacity of 25 kWp and an estimated annual output of 42,900 kWh, according to figures published by Energías Renovables and confirmed in the official statement from the Gobierno de Canarias. Total investment comes to 97,613.83 euros, funded through Next Generation EU money under Spain’s Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan.
The vertical layout isn’t a design choice. The structures, set up in rows that also act as a windbreak, are meant in theory to capture more energy than conventional panels under certain conditions and, more importantly, leave the ground beneath them free for crops, a key point for an institute focused on agricultural research rather than energy alone. The system includes inverters and monitoring tools designed to track, month by month, how the technology performs under real Canarian conditions: near-constant wind, salt-laden air, and temperatures that barely shift through the year but with very high solar exposure.
“This experimental project we’re visiting today in Santa Lucía will let us analyse how innovative photovoltaic systems respond in real agricultural settings on our islands, generating useful knowledge for future rollouts in the primary sector,” said Mariano H. Zapata, the Canary Islands’ regional minister for Ecological Transition and Energy, as quoted by Energías Renovables.
The stated goal is to build infrastructure for isolated self-consumption, tied to research lines on energy efficiency and new agrivoltaic applications adapted to the Canarian climate. It’s not yet clear whether or when this technology will move from experimental status to wider use on farms across the archipelago; the data gathered over the coming months is meant to answer exactly that question.
The project sits within a Canarian energy mix still heavily dependent on fossil fuels: according to 2024 ISTAC data, 79.2% of the electricity generated in the archipelago came from petroleum products, against 20.8% from renewables, of which 15.9% was wind. Solar photovoltaic output grew 16.35% year-on-year, a step in the right direction but one that leaves plenty of ground still to cover. Against that backdrop, experiments like ICIA’s don’t solve the problem on their own, but they add one more piece to a mosaic the regional government is building between energy transition and sustainability in the primary sector.
