Unlocking Dual Land Use: Scaling Agricultural PV Through Viable Business Models

Etienne Mercier is a senior technical and project leader with a strong industrial & cross energy background spanning agrivoltaics, offshore & maritime works, wind energy, oil & gas subsea equipment, and industrial EPC projects. His experience covers the full project lifecycle, including design, procurement, construction, commissioning, and operations with a strong transversal profile, and abilities to bridge technical depth with strategic and operational decision making.Specific expertise in AgriPV starts back in 2018 with a first precursor 2MW project construction as contractor, and a second position as Construction Manager for the AgriTech start-up Ombrea. Current responsibility as Manager of the AgriPV technical Team is to structure the technical aspect of the AgriPV strategy of Total Energies Renewable France, to ensure both optimized economic profitability & agronomical compliance of the ongoing project pipe of the company.

Jochen Hauff is Founder of Think Resiliency, an Advisory service provider in the field of climate resilience. He is also a Senior Advisor to the Global Solar Council and serves as its 'Global Ambassador Agrivoltaics' to help realizing the global potential of agrivoltaics. Jochen has extensive solar and renewable energy experience from his long-term tenures as Director of Corporate Strategy, Energy Policy & Sustainability for BayWa r.e. Group, and his repeat terms as Vice President of SolarPower Europe between 2016 - 2024.Prior, he was Director Renewable Energy & Sustainability at the global management consultancy Kearney, advising energy clients globally.His current focus is on climate resilience, particularly soil health, regenerative agriculture, and sustainable forestry, which he considers crucial for increasing resilience to climate change impacts on land, lives, and livelihoods. His objective is to mobilize private investment in resiliency, and he sees agrivoltaics serving soil regeneration at the core of this. Jochen acts as seed-investor in the Generation-Re and the resist.vc investment syndicates and he provides advice to start-up companies in related fields. An Economist and Environmental Scientist by education, he is a Senior Brandt Fellow at the University of Erfurt and faculty member of the Renewable Energy Management Program at St. Gallen University, where he enjoys sharing his insights and vision with students.

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. He is also Co-Chairing in Land use and Permitting Workstream SolarPowerEurope. In 2020 Stephan Schindele joined the BayWa r.e. 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.

Emma Azeau is a Senior R&D Advisor at Statkraft and AgriPower Initiative Leader, where she provides leadership in energy innovation and AgriPV development. She leads cross functional initiatives that align research, technology development, and business strategy to accelerate the deployment of renewable energy solutions. With solid experience at the interface of R&D, business units, and external innovation ecosystems, Emma also focuses on scaling AgriPV models that create value for both energy systems and agriculture. She actively fosters strategic support for the development of innovative solutions in solar energy, battery systems, and energy management.

David is Chief Commercial Officer at Insolight, leading all commercial and business development activities. Insolight is a European AgriPV project developer with deep technical expertise on crops and 100 projects in development.Prior to joining Insolight, David worked at McKinsey's Geneva office for a variety of industries and large NGO's.David holds a MSc. in Physics from EPFL (CH) and the Berkeley National Lab (USA). He speaks fluently speaking English, French, Spanish and German.