Applications of renewable energy sources in agriculture from a complementarity perspective

While the penetration of renewable energy systems is increasing worldwide to meet the sustainable development goals, the complementary and integrated use of different renewable sources in the so-called Hybrid Renewable Energy Systems (HRESs) is being investigated and proposed to mitigate reliability and intermittency. The current state of applications of HRESs in agriculture is comprehensively presented in this chapter with particular reference to their exploitation for the distributed electricity generation in farms and other related environments, crop cultivation systems in greenhouses, space heating and cooling in farms, saltwater desalination, water pumping, and food drying systems. The employment of energy storage units in HRESs can also assist to enhance the reliability of integrated operations which are discussed in some cases. However, economic and environmental aspects require more investigation to make this integration a successful option.