3FOOD

Third Industrial Revolution Consulting Group
each 50 MW of rated power, operating at 14.6% average capacity factors. The land footprint
would require an area of 129 km2 (12,900 hectares, or 4.96% land area). For context, the area
is comparable to 20% of arable land. Most of this land could be available under the solar panels
for vegetable cultivation. The LCOE is estimated at €cents 9/kWh, with upfront capital cost of
€20.5 billion (in 2016€). Roughly 7,500 construction jobs would be created, full-time equivalent
(FTE) to build capacity, and 11,100 permanent operations jobs created.
Fraunhofer LuxRes 2007 (Solar PV) Update report (June 2016)
How does the Stanford/UC Berkeley solar photovoltaic power assessment compare with and
differ from Fraunhofer Institute’s June 2016 report updating the LuxRes 2007 report? 133 As
with wind power, the key difference is the time frame, with Fraunhofer focused on 2020,
compared to 2050 by the S/UCB analysis. Capacity factors are roughly the same in both reports
(15% by Fraunhofer, and 14.6% by S/UCB). A third key difference is the estimated technical and
theoretical potentials of Luxembourg’s solar PV availability. Fraunhofer calculates a technical
potential of 7,900 GWh per year out of a theoretical potential of 33,200 GWh per year; whereas
S/UCB calculates a technical potential of 14,400 GWh per year.
Farmers typically receive annual royalty fees for allowing siting of wind turbines. It is
impossible to speculate on Luxembourg’s local arrangement, but according to farmers’
experience in the United States, the rural wind advocacy group, Windustry, notes, “Wind lease
terms vary quite a bit, but the general rules of thumb is: 3,500 to 7,000 euros per turbine, 2,700
to 3,500 euros per megawatt of capacity, or 2-4% of gross revenues. Larger turbines should
translate to larger payments. Compensation packages typically are offered as fixed yearly
payments, as percentages of gross revenues, or some combination.” 134
Forming a farmers’ energy cooperative to facilitate expansion of farm-based solar and wind
farms is another potential option, and has already been implemented in Luxembourg in the
biogas sector for more than 10 years. Agricultural cooperatives have a long history in
Luxembourg. 135 University of Luxembourg Law Professor David Hiez has written extensively on
the status of cooperatives in Luxembourg, and might be one expert to call upon for
insights. 136137
133 Op cit., Fraunhofer (2016).
134 Windustry (n.d.) How Much do Farmers get paid to host wind turbines? http://www.windustry.org/about.
135 Cogeca (2015) Development of Agricultural Cooperatives in the EU 2014, European agri-cooperatives, February
2015, http://www.copa-cogeca.eu/Cogeca.
136 Hiez, David and Willy Tadjudje (2012) Support for Farmers’ Cooperatives; Country Report Luxembourg.
Wageningen: Wageningen UR.
137 Hiez, David (2013) Coopératives : Création, organisation, fonctionnement, Dalloz-Sirey.
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