Real Solar Farms: Agrivoltaics and its Importance
Most of the exciting breakthroughs that have been made in the solar industry involved complex engineering and scientific research to achieve design improvements, such as with the concept of utilizing quantum dots for transparent PV cells to function. However, there has been a much more simplistic innovation of the typical solar panels that we are used to, such that the inner workings of the panels are not even changed.
This innovation I am referring to is the concept of agrivoltaics, and it is not necessarily one that will change how solar panels are seen and used in terms of energy production, but rather, it is a simple way of using its own physical characteristics to essentially “kill two birds with one stone.” As I delve more into the concept of agrivoltaics, that statement will hopefully make more sense. Thus, let’s jump right into what agrivoltaics are, and its importance.
The Problem
Agriculture has always been an essential part of both economic stability, and alimentation, and it only continues to grow with higher demand. Naturally, one of the most essential ingredients in the agricultural industry is water. This has been further expanded upon by a study conducted by Oregon State University, which found that 85% of global water consumption is used for irrigation, and over one-third of all greenhouse gases are attributed to agriculture.
This emphasizes the importance of conserving both water and energy when it comes to agricultural processes, and they elaborated upon this by discussing how the amount of water used is only going to increase, and highlighting the fact that if something isn’t done to ensure we can keep up with this requirement, the agricultural industry won’t be able to keep up with population growth. That’s where agrivoltaics come in.
How Agrivoltaics Help Solve It
The way agrivoltaics work is quite similar to solar canopies, with the objective being to reduce the amount of unwanted sunlight that is provided to a specific area. In this case, the area of concern is the fields of plants and crops that are situated below the beating hot sun for hours at a time.
Every plant has a light saturation point (also known as the maximum rate of photosynthesis), which acts as a limit to how much sunlight intake is necessary for photosynthesis to occur. Because of this, after the amount of sunlight being taken in by a plant exceeds its respective light saturation point, the plant essentially begins to overheat and becomes dehydrated as a result. This results in the plant taking in more water to make up for the excess sunlight that is being provided to it, and ultimately using more water than it would normally require.
In order to resolve this issue, the idea of placing solar panels above an area where plants and crops reside in a way that allows the plants to reach their maximum rate of photosynthesis without exceeding their light saturation point has become an effective and easy solution to assist in the conservation of water. This is the concept of agrivoltaics, and has proved to be quite effective.
A Dynamic Duo
As the solar panels collect any excess sunlight from the plants through this process, the plants also assist in increasing the efficiency of the overall energy production of the solar panels by drawing in unwanted heat that would normally remain within the solar panels and cause potential damage and interrupt the overall energy production process.
This process has been enhanced via the implementation of artificial intelligence to allow the tilt of the solar panels to change with respect to the direction and intensity of the sunlight throughout the day. As a result of these efforts, it has been found that panels positioned above plants produce up to 10% more electricity.
This is indeed a huge improvement, and were it to become more commonplace in the agricultural and energy industry, it could effectively conserve our water supply while simultaneously preventing energy from being wasted, and all simply from sharing farmland and nothing more!
References:
[1] https://agsci.oregonstate.edu/newsroom/sustainable-farm-agrivoltaic
[3] https://youtu.be/2ue53mBUtNY
[4] https://research.arizona.edu/stories/what-is-agrivoltaics
[5] https://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/how-agrivoltaic-technology-could-redesign-farming/
