Agrivoltaics Crop Yield Modeling

Quantifying the Effects of Light Limitations on Crop Growth

Abstract

Agrivoltaics (APV) combine agriculture and photovoltaic (PV) energy production on the same land and have the potential to provide several synergies for both production systems. Moving towards large-scale commercial implementation, synergies and trade-offs need to be quantified. Various APV designs exist and have been studied in field experiments in the past. In addition to PV design choices, differences respecting the crops grown, the soil conditions and the climatic conditions are known to affect crop yields. However, it is unclear how planned APV sites with conditions that differ from the known research sites will perform. This poses challenges in terms of assessing the implications for both farmers and APV planners. Therefore, we developed a framework for simulating impacts of APV shading effects on crop yields. A new APV shading model is developed to specifically match the needs of the PROMET crop model, which is capable of worldwide simulations for a large range of crop types. When compared to results from the state-of-the art bifacial radiance raytracing model, similar trends and magnitudes in irradiance reductions have been observed. Agricultural yield prediction simulations for a planned BayWa r.e. APV project in France were used as a test case. The simulation results showed large differences between one-in-portrait and two-in-portrait trackers. The simulated crop yields for the site remain only within an acceptable range for winter wheat and rapeseed with 1P trackers. While the shading model and PROMET have already been tested individually, a more in-depth validation of the entire framework is planned for the near future, when data for planned systems becomes available. The addition of the APV shading model expands capabilities of the PROMET crop model towards APV simulation and allows for future development of advanced APV-related data products.