The amount of energy that one hectare of land can provide depends heavily on how it is used. A Thünen study shows that wind power and solar power are significantly more efficient than bioenergy. A car can travel around 3,000 times further on wind energy than on biodiesel made from rapeseed. Similar differences also exist in electricity and heat production.
Germany's fields are no longer just used to grow food. Cultivating energy crops such as rapeseed and corn is also profitable for farmers. In addition, the energy transition is making the combination of arable farming with photovoltaic and wind power plants increasingly attractive from an economic perspective.
Researchers at the Thünen Institute of Farm Economics have therefore investigated how much energy can be generated from one hectare of farmland. The result was clear: wind power and solar power are many times more efficient than biogas and biodiesel. For example, an electric car can travel 60 times further on the amount of solar power generated by one hectare of land and around 3,000 times further on the amount of wind energy generated than a combustion engine car running on biodiesel from rapeseed grown on the same area. The calculations are based on the average consumption of electric cars (18.4 kilowatt hours) and combustion engines (4.7 liters) per 100 kilometers.
The situation is similar in terms of electricity supply: biogas from one hectare of corn supplies seven households for a year. On the same area, photovoltaics supply electricity for 230 households annually, and wind power even for around 6,000 households. Wind power and solar power also score highly in terms of heat supply: while biogas only supplies seven households per year, photovoltaic systems can cover 170 and wind turbines as many as 4,300 households per hectare of land use – especially since the storage losses that can occur with renewable energy sources have been taken into account.
The difference
Translated with DeepL.com (free version)
Further links
- The Thünen study “Comparison of the energy yields per unit area of various renewable energies on agricultural land – for electricity, heat, and transport” was published in the journal “Berichte über Landwirtschaft” (Reports on Agriculture).
- The fact-check video “Energy from the field – is it worth it?” illustrates the results of the Thünen study in just four minutes.
- A project brief “Solar power from the field” is available on the Thünen Institute website in German and English.
