1 / 11

Dual-Use (Agrivoltaic) Systems: Maximizing Benefits for Agriculture and Energy

Explore the potential of dual-use (agrivoltaic) systems in the agricultural and energy industries. Discover how shade from PV panels can reduce water demands, cool microclimates, and increase food production. Find out how solar panels can enhance water use efficiency and biomass production in cropping systems.

rlanza
Download Presentation

Dual-Use (Agrivoltaic) Systems: Maximizing Benefits for Agriculture and Energy

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Prepared by Chad Higgins Dual-use (agrivoltaic) systems benefit the agricultural industry and the energy industry. Image of dual-use sheep pasture field location, late August Chad Higgins, Elnaz HassanPour, Steve Good, John Selker, Marc Calaf Brown Green

  2. A high-functioning dual use system Cooler PV panels produce more energy solar excess We can measure all of this! Shade % reduces water demands, plant stress Plant transpiration cools microclimate Less stressed plants produce more food, better food Reduced agricultural water demand leaves more water available.

  3. more water available for longer under panels Orientation, the dashed diagonal is the noon shadow front in August for reference SFC = solar fully covered (full shade) SPO = solar partially open (partial shade) SFO= Solar Fully open (no shade, but in array area) Fig 4: Soil moisture time series (a) 0.2m, (b) 0.4m and (c) 0.6m. For more information: there was 40 mm precipitation over the observation period, i.e. May-Aug 2015.

  4. 90% more biomass • 328% more water efficient

  5. Field data • Solar panel efficiency • decreases with air temp • increases with wind speed • decreases with humidity • Modeled with thermodynamics Model

  6. Thermodynamic model applied to globe.

  7. Energy potential of solar power ranked by land classification: the best place to put solar panels is on croplands

  8. Solar panels led to an 300%+ increase in the water use efficiency of the cropping system • Solar panels led to a 90% increase in biomass production of the cropping system • Species diversity changed • Solar panels are projected to be more productive when placed over cropping systems

  9. Conclusions Cooler PV panels produce more energy solar excess • Solar panels led to an 300%+ increase in the water use efficiency of the cropping system • Solar panels led to a 90% increase in biomass production of the cropping system • Solar panels are projected to be more productive when placed over cropping systems Shade % reduces water demands, plant stress Plant transpiration cools microclimate Less stressed plants produce more food, better food Reduced agricultural water demand leaves more water available.

  10. Caveats and where we are going • Have only investigated pasture conditions • Results likely to change with irrigation • Measurements ongoing or planned to determine • Nutrient content of forage and soil (in process) • Genetic sequencing of soil microbiology (in process) • Sheep health (In process) • Pollinators (in process) • Tolatoes (on process) • Nursery stock (planned this summer) • Weed, pest and disease impacts (planned, 2020)

  11. The takeaway Yes there are some interesting results here in support of dual use, but this isn’t the main takeaway…. If you don’t work with Agriculturalists, you are leaving $ on the table.

More Related