NATURAL AND AGRICULTURAL SCIENCES Smart energy systems and sustainable development studies at the Fort Hare Institute of Technology Professor Edson L. Meyer Global warming and the climate change associated with it mean that ensuring our planet remains habitable for generations in the future is enormously important. Thankfully, scientists at the Fort Hare Institute of Technology under the leadership of Director Professor Edson L. Meyer have been working to achieve this very goal thanks to research focused on solar energy technology, bio energy engineering, smart energy systems and sustainable development. Professor Edson L. Meyer hotovoltaic (PV) systems that installed are sometimes made worse solar power means that areas that convert power from the sun by defects in their manufacture. would otherwise have been available into clean, sustainable, cheap Researchers at the UFH Institute of to grow crops are reduced. In addition, P energy are increasing in popularity, Technology, located in SolarWatt large-scale solar generation projects with houses, shopping complexes Park on the Alice Campus, are now do not often involve participation from and other buildings now sporting conducting studies which aim to communities in the area or result in the panels that make this possible detect and classify defects in PV job opportunities once the systems on their rooftops. Often, these systems and which also identify the have been installed. However, using systems have to endure extreme way in which they degrade. land for both PV power generation environmental conditions which In South Africa, the potential of and agriculture has the potential to contribute to their ageing rate and photovoltaics (PV) as a renewable change all this, and this has resulted deterioration. Problems resulting technology has resulted in the large- in UFH scientists becoming interested from harsh conditions in the outdoor scale usage of land to harvest solar in ‘agrovoltaic’ projects. environments in which they are energy. The use of land to generate Studies on agrovoltaic projects show 11 | University of Fort Hare