We have all seen pictures of massive solar farms with nothing growing under the panels except for weeds. While solar energy generation is becoming an increasingly profitable use for cropland, this is leading to concerns that solar farms will displace food production.
One possible solution is agrivoltaics – the co-locating of agriculture and solar photovoltaic panels – which can maintain crop production, produce renewable energy, lower water use and increase farm profitability.
Farmers need assistance, however, in determining the crops and locations best suited for agrivoltaic systems, as well as the solar panel design and placement that maintain or increase crop yields.
A new $10 million grant from the National Institute of Food and Agriculture in the U.S Department of Agriculture will allow researchers to study how to best optimize design for agrivoltaic systems in a variety of land types and climate scenarios.
According to a new article in Wired, researchers are having to find out which vegetables to better in the shade. Surprisingly, vegetables often associated with the heat and sun, such as tomatoes and peppers do better in partial shade where they are less stressed by intense sunlight and heat.
Greg Barron-Gafford, an earth system scientist at University of Arizona who’s studying agrivoltaics, told Wired: “It is a rare win-win-win. By growing these crops in the shade of solar arrays, we reduce the amount of that intense sunlight that bakes off the water and stresses out the plant.”
Other benefits include needing less water for vegetable production and by keeping the area cool under the solar panels, they function better as well.
The lead institute on the four-year project, titled “Sustainably Colocating Agricultural and Photovoltaic Electricity Systems,” or SCAPES, is the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Partner institutes include the University of Arizona, Colorado State University, Auburn University, the University of Illinois Chicago and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. The project is funded through the Agriculture and Food Research Institute Sustainable Agriculture Systems program.
