Renewable Energy in Agriculture

Dear Colleagues,

Against the background of the discussion on climate change, renewable energies have experienced an enormous increase in public interest. In this context, agriculture plays a doubly important role: both as a consumer and as a provider of renewable energy. Rural areas in many regions are only sparsely supplied with energy networks, and the agricultural sector can benefit from easy access to (micro)hydropower; wind energy; solar energy; and, of course, bioenergy. In addition to meeting its own energy needs, agriculture can act as an energy supplier by producing biomass, biodiesel, bioethanol, and biogas. Public and private research funding has led to a considerable increase in research and development activities in this field. This Special Issue is intended to bring together the latest findings of the researchers in order to initiate new research based on the state of the art. We invite you to submit your recent research addressing one of the following topics:

• Production and processing of energy crops;
• Provision of solid biofuel, biodiesel, bioethanol and biogas;
• Processing and use of biogas digestate;
• Combustion and pyrolysis of biomass;
• Engines and stoves for vegetable oil;
• Solar heating in agriculture;
• Solar drying of agricultural products;
• Solar cooling of agricultural products;
• Solar desalination of irrigation water;
• Agro-photovoltaics;
• Photovoltaic pumping of irrigation water;
• Wind and water driven pumps in agriculture;
• Renewable energy in greenhouse applications;
• Modelling and simulation;
• Life cycle assessment;

Prof. Dr. Joachim Müller
Dr. Hans Oechsner
Guest Editors

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