Agrivoltaics Notes

Agrivoltaics in India and the United States

• India has many edible big farms and is increasing research in the area.
• The United States is a leader in agrivoltaics.
• The total export capacity in the United States is around 10,000 megawatts.
• Agrivoltaics is gaining speed in the United States and Europe, particularly in Germany.

Types of Agrivoltaics

• Four main types of heavy voltage (agrivoltaics) exist:
  • Semi-transparent Photovoltaic (PV) Modules:
    • Allow some sunlight to pass through.
    • Use the remaining sunlight to generate electricity.
    • Sometimes replace greenhouse walls.
  • Crop-Based Agrivoltaics:
    • Involves two main topologies for farm design:
      • Elevated Mount Agrivoltaic Farms:
        • Solar PV modules are placed high up (around 5 meters).
        • Advantage: Allows a lot of sunlight due to the height and gaps between modules.
      • Between-Row Agrivoltaics:
        • Vertical PV panels are used.
        • Crops are grown in between the vertical panels.
        • Common in Germany.
  • Agrivoltaic Greenhouse:
    • The roof of greenhouse is replaced with semi-transparent PV modules.
    • Modules allow some sunlight through and harvest the remaining sunlight for electricity.

Impact on Crop Yield

• General perception challenged: Higher sunlight does not always mean better crop yield.
• Crops often do not require all the sunlight they receive.
• Research has shown increased crop yield with agrivoltaics compared to traditional farming.
  • Corn:
    • Experiment in Japan showed almost 5% increase in crop yield.
  • Kale:
    • Studies showed between 25% to 60% increase in crop yield.
  • Pepper:
    • Research in the United States showed more than double the yield.
    • Achieved almost a 50% crop yield increase.
  • Lettuce and Strawberries:
    • Research in Canada showed positive results with agrivoltaics.
    • Strawberries: Enhanced yield by as much as 18%.
    • Lettuce: Increased yield of 3%.
• Agrivoltaics can benefit farmers by increasing crop yield and utilizing the same land for electricity, especially with climate change challenges.

Agrivoltaics in Canada

• Canada's solar energy has grown rapidly, increasing by 92% in the last five years.
• Canada has almost 4,000 megawatts of utility-scale solar.
• Canada ranks 24th in terms of installed solar energy capacity.
• Issue:
  • People want to install solar farms on farmland due to abundance of sunlight.
  • Creates a challenge between food security and renewable energy deployment.

Key Issues with Solar PV

• Land Use Conflict:
  • Solar PV takes up a lot of land.
  • Need to integrate solar technology with farmland.
• Policies and Regulations:
  • Some policies restrict solar development on farmlands.
  • Example: Ontario prohibits solar development on premium farmland.
  • Alberta has a free market approach with certain contingencies.
• Energy Consumption Impact:
  • Installing solar PV on farmland may result in food shortages and reduced crop production.
  • Agrivoltaics can mitigate these impacts.

Projects in Canada

• Specialized Racking Development:
  • Prices of solar PV farms are mainly driven by the balance of system (65-85% of total cost).
  • Developed specialized racking for agrivoltaics to reduce costs.
  • Racks are almost two meters high (scale-mounted design).
  • Racks are made of wood to address aesthetics of solar farm.
  • Cost ranges from 0.3 to 3.3 dollars per watt.
  • Installation was done in Okanagan, British Columbia, in collaboration with the First Nations and indigenous community.
• Mounting Mechanisms for Solar Panels:
  • Developed 3D-printed designs of solar beam mounting mechanisms using recycled plastics.
  • Results in a saving of around 66% as far as mounting mechanism's costs are concerned.
• Policy Pieces for Agrivoltaics in Alberta:
  • Analyzed legislation to enhance or hinder agrivoltaic installation.
  • Land Use Framework: A policy guideline that defines how to use farmland within the province.
  • Land is divided into green link (public and forested regions) and white land (agricultural land and private ownership).
  • Tools to maintain agricultural land - zoning laws, reservation directives, and reservation easement.
  • Municipal Development Act gives power to municipalities to issue directives and protect farmland.
  • Bill 22: Amended Alberta Utilities Commission Act and Hydro Electricity Act to allow self-supply and export of electricity from a PV farm.

Potential in Saskatchewan

• Saskatchewan is a powerhouse of agricultural production (largest exporter of pulses).
• Simulations for wheat and pasture showed increased yield (90% for pasture, 3% for wheat).
• Extrapolated the economics and potential revenue for Saskatchewan if agrivoltaics was installed on all farmland of wheat and pasture.
• Potential revenue:
  • Wheat: Almost 970,000,000 Canadian dollars.
  • Pasture: Almost 816,000,000,000 Canadian dollars.
  • Integrating electricity: Revenues are almost more than 1,300,000,000,000.

Practical Implementation and Simulations

• Simulated vertical PV farms to ascertain which crops would work within Canada.
• Simulated agrivoltaic farms with vertical PV rackings at three different spaces (5 meters, 15 meters, and 45 meters spacing).
• Simulated in London, Calgary, and Winnipeg.
• Ascertained which crops would work best considering sunlight penetration.
• If only those crops that would work fine without any decrease yield within Canada were used, almost 84% of all electricity requirements would be met at other ones at Canada through through these.

Strawberry Agrivoltaics

• Strawberry is the fifth most popular food in Canada.
• Global production is almost 8,800,000 metric tons.
• Strawberries are rich in vitamins and fibers and improve insulin sensitivity.
• Limited research has been done on agrivoltaics with strawberries.
• Experiments at Western University used neutral strawberries inside BIOS (simulating outdoor conditions of London, Ontario).
• Parameters included 25 degrees centigrade in daytime temperature, 15 degrees centigrade in nighttime temperatures, and 16 hours of photoclear.
• Experiments ranged from 10% transparent to 80% transparent solar cells.
• Results showed that with 70% transparent thin film modules, yield increase of almost 40% could be achieved.
• With 69% nonuniform crystalline silicon PV modules, yield could almost double.
• PV modules above 40% transparent have a considerable need above 80% as compared to control.
• Experiment was taken outdoors with different transparencies (50% to 80%) and racking designs.
• With 44% crystalline silicon PV modules, an increased yield of almost 4% was achieved.
• With 69% transparent PV module, yield reached almost 27%.

Economic and Electrical Impact

• Simulations to understand the economic and electrical impact of strawberry agrivoltaics.
• Almost 300 to 500,000,000 Canadian dollars could be the revenue increased for the strawberry and big farms if agrivoltaics was expanded on all the strawberry farmland in Canada.
• Experiment was done for lettuce as well (crop yield could be from 1% to 102%).
• German policy: in order for a farm to qualify as an agrivoltaic farm, you need to produce at least 66% of crop yield compared to the traditional farming or the conventional farming.
• French policy: Requires 90% of the crop yield must be achieved within an active voltaic farm.
• Italian and Czech Republic: Have restricted the amount of farmland that can be converted into an anti voltaic.
• Suggested yield requirement should be at least set at 70%.
• Potential of lettuce agrivoltaics in terms of economics and electricity management is quite huge as well.
• Numbers go as high as almost a billion dollars of revenue.
• Revenue from electrical services compared to lettuce sales: minimum is almost 46%, but can go as high as almost a 60%.
• Enhances economic resilience of farmers.

Agrivoltaics in Current and Future Planting Zones

• Compared agrivoltaics in current and future planting zones (simulated 2050 climatic conditions).
• 69% distance PV modules outperforms all PV modules that were tested, and it yielded higher yields in 2024 conditions even compared to controls.
• Experiments were conducted for amaranth (a serial crop), again, in current conditions as well as future conditions.
• The 80% can be on the right PV module providing targets here and the purple line (2050 conditions) outperform even the control conditions as well.
• 7% increase in yield was achieved in the controlled conditions that can be attributed to climate alone, which leads to higher yields compared to 2024 conditions.
• Ensuring that crops do not require the amount of sunlight, it is not necessary to have highest higher power values, and crop production starts to reduce after a certain threshold.

Agrivoltaics Ectotunnel

• The ectotunnel is basically a vertical farm facility, indoor farming facility in which you grow crops through LED lights.
• Ectotunnels are insulated and weather resistant, working well in northern climates and very harsh climates.
• The land footprint that is required to power the electricity needs of such an electro tunnel was almost five times the original value of the PV.
• LED lights are the major contributor of electricity requirement.
• Lab is working on optimizing the LED light requirements by playing with the photoperiod and the amount of light that the crops require.

The 4% Solution for Canada

• Ran simulations to ascertain the energy agrivoltaic potential of the country.
• Almost 28 to 43% of Canada's electricity requirements can be detected with energy voltage if only 1% of farmland was used to deploy it.
• To completely decarbonize the electricity grid of Canada, less than 1% of the returns on land are needed, barring the provinces of Alberta, British Columbia, and the Marigandans.
• A 4% solution translates that if only 4% of WASA was used to deploy a new voltage, it would basically take all news off off Canada.

Social Science Study

• A study on whether agrivoltaics improve public support within Canada indicated that it does.
• Almost 85% people are more likely to support PV development if it was integrated with agrivoltaics.
• Main reasons for opposition of agrivoltaics came from the lack of knowledge of the participants or basically misunderstanding and misinformation.
• Instrumentation used for experiments is open source.

Future Works

• Conduct story experiments in this area to validate the data that is currently being built at Western University.
• Will have almost six or seven different types of wrackings and six and seven different types of PV modules installed on those rack, and will be experimenting with a bunch of different crops to find out the most optimum configuration for any voltage for that particular crop.
• AgriVoltage Canada: A non-profit organization founded to promote agrivoltaics.

Questions and Answers Session

• Why does production increase when you put solar panels of the plants?
  • There is an optimum power value that is required by the plants. After that, plants do not require that amount of sunlight.
  • Exploiting relief for plants from heat and wind and adjusting the temperature for plant needs.
• Is it economically feasible?
  • Tracking offers some solutions. It allows you to fold as the machine is going through, and so you don't have to time it very high.
• Cable Management
  • Specific thought should be put on cable management in Agrivoltaic fields, where typically more people and possibly animals are present. Having more people around can notice issues and prevent dangerous wiring issues
• Incentives
  • There are no incentives for it in Canada.

Presentation by another speaker

• Introduce herself as being part of a project that is doing research and field research into a global case across the US.