A Site-Level Integrated Analysis of Agrivoltaic Systems

Dual-use systems that co-locate agricultural production with solar photovoltaic energy production (agrivoltaics) represent one approach which can be used to further renewable energy development while also minimizing the loss of agricultural land, mitigating land use conflicts, and exploiting emergent synergies. Contemporary agrivoltaic research has highlighted the possible benefits of agrivoltaic systems, but it is important to develop quantitative tools which can begin to address the salient question, how much energy/food/profit can a specific agrivoltaic installation be expected to produce?. To address this need, we developed a tool for site-level integrated systems analysis of an agrivoltaic installation. The analysis integrates three modeling frameworks: 1) solar radiation modeling, 2) agricultural crop growth simulation modeling, 3) economic cost modeling. The systems analysis framework allows for the estimation of electricity production, agricultural yield, water use, and overall profit for an AV site. The modular nature of this analysis provides flexibility to explore how relevant outputs differ in the face of differing weather conditions, photovoltaic installation layouts, crop cultivars, and economic realities. The exercise of creating this integrated model also illuminates existing knowledge and data gaps which must be addressed with empirical field data in order to improve the modeling of agrivoltaic systems. The solar radiation portion of the analysis takes advantage of the industry standard Building Information Modeling (BIM) software Autodesk® Revit® in order to provide a parameterized 3-D representation of the agrivoltaic array. Utilizing the array geometry and the Perez-Sky-Diffuse-Irradiance formulation, incoming solar radiation at both the solar panel surface and crop level are estimated. Crop yield is modeled using two well established crop simulation models of differing complexity, DSSAT CROPGRO & FAO AquaCrop. Economic cost and revenues are modeled by drawing from relevant cost estimates.