By Diana Yates
In a world where increasing demands for food security and energy strain existing resources, scientists are looking for new ways to maximize both. One potential option, agrivoltaics, integrates solar photovoltaics with crops. A new study examines the agricultural and economic trade-offs that come with installing solar arrays on working farms across the Midwest.
The study found that agrivoltaics can increase or reduce yields and profits, depending on the crop and where such agrivoltaic systems are deployed.
The new findings are reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Led by scientists at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, the team first developed a process-driven model to quantify the impacts of agrivoltaics on energy, water and plant-soil dynamics. The model was first validated and published in the Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems.
The team integrated an economic model to estimate annual net profits per acre from crop production and energy generation for agrivoltaics, conventional agriculture and stand-alone solar energy systems.
Source : illinois.edu