Agri PV: How to Utilize the Vast Potential for Solar Power in Agriculture

An internship in a solar association in 2009 was the starting point of his professional career in the field of renewable energies. During his studies Stephan Schindele worked several times for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). After completing his MBA program at the California State University East Bay (2011) he was employed as a PhD candidate and project manager at the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE. There he built up the new business field of agri-photovoltaics, wrote numerous publications on the topic of Agri-PV and received several awards for his work (2012-2020). Between 2015 and 2020 he taught energy policy at Reutlingen University. Stephan is also co-chairing in Land-Use and Permitting workstream SolarPower Europe In 2020 Stephan Schindele joined the BayWa r.e. Solar Projects family as Head of Agri-PV. He supports the global Agri-PV market development and successfully leverages the synergies of the agricultural and energy industry.

Hariram Subramanian is CTO of the Huawei FusionSolar Smart PV Solution - Europe and is also responsible for large utility scale power plant design and grid integration. He is also the head of PV competence and test center in Nuremberg, Germany. He holds a Master's degree in Electrical Engineering and an MBA degree in International business and strategy. Before being named to his current role at Huawei, he has held R&D, Product Management and senior technical solution sales positions at PV inverter manufacturing companies. He has worked extensively in the Energy conversion technology field as a senior R&D engineer, especially in the field of control engineering for power electronics and PV Grid Integration. He then moved into techno-commercial and product management roles in the solar inverter industry focusing on utility scale PV projects. He has in total 18 years of experience in the energy conversion business. His interests are Grid integration of Renewables, New PV system Architectures, Applications with innovative power electronics systems like EV and Data Center Power Delivery.

As Head of Public Affairs of Amarenco, Eva Vandest elaborates and operates an influence strategy to boost Solar Energy deployment, the most sustainable and affordable Energy to date. As chair of the "Agrisolar" now "Land-Use and Permitting" workstream at SolarPower Europe, she promotes synergies between Agricultural and Solar sectors to tackle climate change adaptation. She stands for ecological transition promoting regenerative agriculture solutions combined with Solar Energy production in rural areas. Since 2022 she is also Vice-Chair of Global Solar Council. Before being certified in Public Affairs, Strategy and Influence at Sciences-Po Paris, she completed a Master's degree at Sorbonne Law School. She started to work at Amarenco in 2016 after an internship at French Conseil d'Etat.

Subrahmanyam Pulipaka is the youngest Chief Executive Officer of National Solar Energy Federation of India (NSEFI). NSEFI is India's largest umbrella body for Solar energy ecosystem which works in a complementary manner to realize India's ambitious Solar goals and represent the Indian Solar industry. He is also the Chair of Renewables in Agriculture Working Group at IRENA Coalition for Action and has also been appointed to UNDP Energy Governance External Advisory Group Member. Recipient of BRICS young scientist Award 2018, Subrahmanyam also specializes in Solar module reliability and has published scientific articles across various internationally acclaimed journals.

Since 2021, James coordinates global agrivoltaics innovation and projects for the Engie group via their innovation center Laborelec,, interacting with project developers, engineers, manufacturers, farmers, public authorities, civil associations, university researchers, and other stakeholders. James has worked in the PV industry since 2005 on 3 continents, and has completed postgrad studies in renewables grid integration, controlled environment agriculture, and regional management. He has a graduate diploma in linguistics.