EDF study finds elevated agrivoltaics provide superior plant protection

A research team led by scientists from French energy company EDF has examined the impact of agrivoltaic system configurations on crop temperature responses under different weather-related stress scenarios and has found that elevated systems offer the best protection against white frost and heat.

“Our goal was to understand the underlying mechanisms and identify which agrivoltaic systems are most effective at protecting crops,” corresponding author Joseph Vernier told pv magazine. “We leveraged numerical modeling tools to predict the agrivoltaic microclimate and compute the resulting plant-air energy, water, and gas exchanges for three weather scenarios – heat-wave, windy spring, white frost – and for six agrivoltaic geometrical designs. We then compared the computed plant temperature beneath the panels and at a control zone without panels to assess which agrivoltaic systems most efficiently protect the plants against the considered extreme weathers.”

In the paper “Designing agrivoltaic systems for plant protection,” published in Agricultural and Forest Methodology, the researchers explained that their analysis explored sensitivity to weather conditions, system parameters, and design choices, highlighting trade-offs between crop protection and energy production.

The research group used the open-source computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software code_saturne to simulate how agrivoltaic system designs influence local microclimate conditions and plant responses. The model combines a PV panel representation with a Soil–Plant–Atmosphere Continuum (SPAC) model, which simulates energy, water, and heat exchanges between soil, vegetation, and the atmosphere to assess plant responses to environmental conditions.

Validated against wind tunnel experiments and field measurements, the approach estimates key microclimate parameters, including wind speed, air temperature, humidity, turbulence, and radiation. PV panels are represented implicitly through source and sink terms that account for their effects on airflow, turbulence, and radiative exchanges, avoiding the need for detailed panel meshing. Plant temperature and water exchanges are calculated through coupled energy and water balance equations within the soil–plant system.

The methodology was tested at EDF R&D’s pilot-scale agrivoltaic power plant, built in 2019 at EDF Lab Les Renardières near Écuelles, in France’s Seine-et-Marne department. The site includes an annual crop rotation field and a grassland field equipped with sensors. The agrivoltaic structure consists of three rows of 16 PV assemblies, each measuring 25 m × 4 m and installed 4.5 m above ground level. Each assembly contains eight 300 W bifacial modules supplied by EDF’s Photowatt unit, providing a total installed capacity of 115 kW. The ground cover ratio (GCR), defined as the ratio of PV panel area to ground area, is 0.37 for horizontal panels.

Radiation sensors, infrared thermometers, weather stations, and soil probes were used to collect data on radiation, plant temperature, meteorological conditions, and soil properties. Transient CFD simulations were then performed to reproduce the experimental APV configuration and evaluate plant responses under frost, warm-weather, and heat-wave scenarios.

The results showed that low-mounted PV systems were more effective at reducing convective stresses, while elevated systems provided greater protection against radiation-related stresses. Elevated configurations were particularly effective in mitigating frost and heat stress by enhancing infrared exchanges and limiting excessive plant temperatures. Vertical PV designs also reduced wind speed and turbulence, potentially decreasing lodging risks and improving photosynthesis during windy conditions.

“Overall, mitigating plant stress may become as critical as increasing photosynthetically active radiation for promoting plant growth, underscoring the need to integrate detailed stress-mitigation analyses into future agrivoltaic research,” the researchers said. “The presented approach demonstrates strong predictive performance, with plant temperature errors below 1 C during freezing nights and 3 C during hot days, making it a promising tool for identifying where and with which designs agrivoltaic systems can enhance plant growth.”

Looking ahead, the scientists aim to integrate the CFD framework with crop growth models through efficient surrogate approaches to enable long-term simulations. Future developments will also focus on improving the representation of complex crop structures, rainfall redistribution, PV heat exchanges, and structural effects.