We were able to meet many existing, but also new business partners.

We saw that with SUNfarming Öko- and Agri-Solar we can offer exactly the right answers to many questions and at the same time felt the tailwind of the entire solar industry.

We would like to thank all visitors to our stand during Intersolar 2022 in Munich.

Our conclusion: a very successful trade fair.
We will be happy to be there again next year!

In March 2022, SUNfarming AG realised the installation of the 13 kWp Agri-Solar system with battery storage system and back-up generator for the independent and reliable energy supply of an outpatient clinic in Gambia. In the small community of Suwareh Kunda on the North Bank of the West African coastal state, whose catchment area includes around 17,000 people, the urgently needed medical facility for adults and children is being built next to an existing primary school with the help of the Brandenburg-based non-profit organisation Alex e.V.. The donation amounting to the procurement value of the SUNfarming components was provided by the Daimler ProCent Foundation.

"Until now, proper medical care has only been provided in the capital city of Banjul, 70 km away, which can only be reached by a heavily used ferry ride of about 45 minutes across the Gambia River," reports Bernd Schorsch, Chairman of Alex e.V. "Only with the help of the generous donation from SUNfarming have we been able to sustainably realise and secure the operation of the infirmary after a project period of seven years in the meantime."

In the future, the new infirmary will have 7 beds for women and 7 beds for men as well as another 5 children's beds for medical care. Furthermore, a fully functional dental surgery with two treatment chairs and two incubators are to be operated, which require a high level of operational safety. "This safety can only be insufficiently guaranteed via the public power grid, which is reflected in power cuts lasting up to 2-3 minutes a day," explains the Gambian project partner and future operator of the hospital, who is called "Baba" by everyone and perfectly fulfils his fatherly role for the population in the region.
SUNfarming has already been working since 2014 in sustainable development aid projects for the supply of renewable energy in combination with the production of food and training in sustainable agriculture among the modules and has itself founded the non-profit association Food, Education, Energy & Development e.V. (FEED) in Germany and South Africa.

These are our topics:

SUNfarming Eco- and Agri-Solar systems with double added value for the energy turnaround:
SUNfarming continues to set the course and focus on biodiversity solar parks. With the two concepts "Eco-Solar" and "Agri-Solar" SUNfarming has set the course for project planning for solar parks on former agricultural land. With the dual-use concept for open space plants, SUNfarming can significantly expand the biodiversity of the land in addition to producing green electricity.

SUNfarming own power concept for municipalities and businesses:
0 % investment costs, on average at least 10 % electricity cost savings in the first 10 years (for municipal electricity), 100 % CO2 savings.

SUNfarming International:
Projects from Poland, Turkey and South Africa introduce themselves.

SUNfarming Food & Energy Projects:
Unique Food & Energy greenhouses developed by SUNfarming deliver jobs + food + energy where they are urgently needed.

SUNfarming Solar Training Centre in South Africa:
More than 3,500 trainees by 2022 in South Africa. Our commitment does not end with funding.

SUNfarming Home Solar:
Produce your own electricity on your roof.

We speak your language: German, English, Polish, Turkish and Spanish.

Your SUNfarming Team

What we have been able to do so far:
SUNfarming, together with many volunteers, including the Potsdam Pirschheide Canoe Club, supported a transport of aid to the Ukrainian border in Poland at the weekend. Clothing, food, baby clothes, hygiene articles, 250 first aid kits and other medicines were brought directly to the Ukrainian border for the refugees. A total of 25 cars, vans and trucks took part in this tour. On the way back, 18 Ukrainian refugees were taken to Potsdam and distributed to private accommodation on Sunday evening. Another transport is planned for the coming weekend, again bringing Ukrainian refugees to the Berlin region.

Another joint fundraising campaign by SUNfarming and our solar business partners from Fürstenwalde brought several organised trucks with donations as far as eastern Poland. From there, a former Ukrainian SUNfarming employee received the donations and distributed them in Ukraine.
The trucks were loaded with food donations (long-life milk, oatmeal, biscuits, canned food, nappies) and pharmacy donations (bandages, medicines). SUNfarming staff donated warm blankets, torches, tools and clothes, among other things.

A report by Benjamin Meise, solar business partner from Fürstenwalde and co-organiser.
The aid convoys from last week have returned safely.
Some of the donations from Fürstenwalde and from the municipalities of the Odervorland district were brought to the vicinity of Warsaw (Nowy Dwor mazowiecki) at the weekend and then from there directly to Mlyniv (Ukraine) today.
Our coach, which also travelled to Nowy Dwor together with the fire brigade vehicles of the Amt Odervorland, transported 28 Ukrainian women and children from the refugee collection centre in Warsaw, where more than 1,000 refugees were already waiting, to the ZABH Eisenhüttenstadt. From there they are distributed further.
At the Ukrainian border there are very long traffic jams with people who want to get to safety and therefore leave the country. Some of them have not been able to sleep for three nights. They are mainly women and children. Many people no longer make it to the border because the escape routes have been destroyed and they are surrounded in the cities.
From Fürstenwalde, an additional 6 fully loaded transporters drove out to Lublin. On the way back, after a short break, they took 14 women and children from different places in the border region to Germany. On the way, they encountered military convoys. Some of the petrol stations were sold out.
The drivers and second drivers were on the road for up to 24 hours and longer without a break, each covering more than 1,500 km. One team of drivers spent the night at the border at -2 degrees to wait for two women and three children with whom they had spontaneously arranged to meet via private messenger services. The family is from Kharkiv and was bombed out. They had been on the run since Thursday and were now overjoyed to be safe.

With these funds, the non-profit association in South Africa can include more kindergartens and schools in the urgently needed "school lunch" project and further expand its sustainable development aid regionally.
"We have seen what we can create with and for the local people," explains Edith Brasche from FEED. "Our goal is to go beyond self-sufficiency to create new jobs and income for local people in agriculture and vegetable and medicinal herb cultivation by offering them the opportunity to grow under the SUNfarming Food & Energy facilities free of charge after the trainings. When selling the surplus of vegetables and medicinal herbs, we support the former trainees so that they can build up a successful small business in the long run. The sponsoring of AURUBIS AG will bring us a big step forward and promote a sustainable support of the trainees over three years", says Edith Brasche.

In addition to local projects in the countries where it operates, Aurubis has also been involved at an international level since 2019. After projects in Peru and Chile, Aurubis has also been supporting the non-profit association F.E.E.D. in South Africa, more precisely in the Potchefstroom region, for the first time since 2021.
Stefanie Klein, Social Engagement Aurubis AG, explains why: "We are pleased to be able to support F.E.E.D., a project that combats malnutrition, provides training in sustainable, ecological food cultivation and promotes the use of resource-saving technologies. The important approach of helping people to help themselves is in the foreground here, because targeted knowledge transfer enables the people in the project to participate in society - and ultimately it contributes to the further development of an entire region. For these reasons, this holistic project is an excellent fit for us and our focus areas."

FEED has so far been able to distribute 7.57 million servings of "Vitality Porridge" to 24,000 school and kindergarten children and 100,000 family members as part of its cooperation with SUNfarming in DEG's COVID-19 Response Programme in 2021. More than 1,000 township residents, many of them women, were trained in sustainable agriculture in the agri trainings and new community or school gardens were planted every week, which are now used to feed the population and the children in the schools and kindergartens in the long term.
You can find out more about FEED at www.feed-ev.de.

PRESS RELEASE: Erkner/Heinsberg, 10.02.2022. SUNfarming Group AG is one of Germany's leading project developers and investors in the field of solar energy and is also a pioneer in the development and operation of agri-photovoltaic systems. This type of plant enables the dual use of photovoltaics and agriculture through elevated glass-glass solar modules. This enables the farmer to cushion the effects of climate change, increase crop yields through higher-value crops and at the same time produce electricity himself. For many years, SUNfarming Group AG has been cooperating with the Institute for Plant Sciences at the Jülich Research Centre, both at the Jülich site and abroad, to research the development of different types of plants under the modules. In addition, the resulting contribution to the additional water supply of plants and soils is being investigated in order to be able to evaluate the influence gained from these innovative systems for plant production in climate change.

In a cooperative project between the Jülich Research Centre and the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems (ISE), SUNfarming was commissioned in 2021 to develop two new types of system and implement them at the newly developing Morschenich-Alt development site near Jülich. The first is a further development of the so-called SUNfarming Food & Energy System type with a higher clearance height of over 2.50 m and greater post spacing, which also enables the use of larger agricultural machines. The other is a so-called SUNfarming Food & Energy Tracking System as a special design with modules that track the position of the sun to increase yields and a total height of more than 6 m and a clearance height of 4 m. The latter is used to research different shading systems. The latter is used to research different shading scenarios for the plants as well as more efficient rainwater management to make crop cultivation more climate-sensitive.

After a development period of just under 9 months, the SUNfarming Group, known for its technical development services, was able to install the entire facility in Morschenich-Alt at the end of 2021. From completion in February 2022, the facilities will not only provide the framework for comprehensive research work on all aspects of plant cultivation in agri-solar systems, but will also produce approx. 300,000 kWh of solar energy per year, which, among other things, will supply the research site with sustainably generated energy and thus avoid the emission of over 140 t of greenhouse gas per year. SUNfarming Group AG has also founded SUNfarming West GmbH at the Heinsberg site in 2021 to expand its business activities in North Rhine-Westphalia and the neighbouring Benelux countries.

"We have already been working successfully with the Jülich Research Centre for many years, especially in the field of agri-photovoltaic systems," explains David Morr, Head of Department for Food & Energy Projects at SUNfarming. "In this cooperation project between the plant scientists from the Jülich Research Centre and Fraunhofer ISE, we were able to contribute our high level of technical development expertise in the agri-solar sector, which we have acquired over many years in our own research and innovation park at the Rathenow site in Brandenburg. Based on the requirements of our clients, we were thus able to construct two food & energy plant types for Morschenich-Alt, which practically demonstrate new solutions for multiple land use, with regard to the production of solar energy as well as the cultivation possibilities for berry fruits, medicinal, oil and fibre plants under changing climatic conditions," says David Morr.

Only about 20 km away from Morschenich-Alt, the first 5 megawatt SUNfarming eco-solar plant is currently under construction on a former gravel pit in Heinsberg. This plant is also the first of its kind in the Rhineland and is expected to be connected to the grid in April 2022. Further projects in the Heinsberg district are already being planned.

Contact:
SUNfarming West GmbH
Am Vossenweg 2
52525 Heinsberg
Deutschland

Edith Brasche
Mobil: +49 152 536 169 93
e.brasche@sunfarming.de

Igor Hensing
Mobil: +49 172 214 3827
Tel.: +49 (0) 2452 / 988 786
i.hensing@sunfarming.de

BioökonomieREVIER

Fraunhofer