Agrivoltaics

Italy’s Ministry of the Environment and Energy Security (MASE) says it has received 643 bids totaling 1.7 GW in its first agrivoltaic tender. About 56% of the proposals have come from the country’s sunny southern regions.

French developer Green Lighthouse Développement says the French authorities have approved its 450 MW agrivoltaic project on 200 hectares of agricultural land in southwestern France.

Researchers from Purdue University have studied the impact of traditional photovoltaic systems and agrivoltaics deployed in corn croplands. They conclude agrivoltaics could offer a viable strategy to ease the current tradeoff between energy production, greenhouse gas emissions, food production and farm profitability.

Japan’s Sekisui Chemical launched an agrivoltaics project in partnership with Terra, a unit of Japan-based Citizen Energy Chiba, to test the peformance of its perovskite solar cell technology and the effect of the PV system on plants.

The Japanese authorities have suspended feed-in tariffs (FITs) and premiums for 342 agrivoltaic projects due to violations of new agricultural land regulations. Analyst Makoto Tajima tells pv magazine that this move could hinder the development of agrivoltaics in land-scarce Japan.

Researchers have created a novel model that can help developers assess corn growth in agrivoltaic facilities. They also proposed to use spatiotemporal shadow distribution (SSD) to optimize crop yield and power production.

At Bluewave, integrating solar technology with traditional farming practices isn’t just a concept, it’s the new standard. Jesse Robertson-DuBois, director of sustainable solar development, shares insights on the transformative journey of agrivoltaics within the industry.

Indian researchers have compared the performance of an agrivoltaic system to monofacial and bifacial rooftop PV systems, and have found that the agrivoltaics setup had a shorter payback time and lower levelized cost of energy. Their analysis of performance considered panel temperature, power output, land equivalent ratio, and reliability.

A new paper finds that combining photovoltaics with crop farming can result in revenue gains over the life of a PV system at a diverse range of locations in the United Kingdom. Researcher Aritra Ghosh tells pv magazine that the benefits of agrivoltaics are “multifaceted.”

Agri-Light has launched its first pilot agrivoltaic project, using a two-axis solar installation on a rail system to move solar panels horizontally above a vineyard in the Negev Desert. The results are due this summer, and the company plans to build commercial projects in Israel and Spain next year.