How does module tracking for agrivoltaics differ from standard photovoltaics? Food, energy, and technoeconomic implications

Habeel Alam and Nauman Zafar Butt

Renewable Energy, 2024, vol. 235, issue C

Abstract: Module tracking can be an effective approach for spatial-temporal sharing of sunlight between solar modules and crops in agrivoltaics (AV). For desired food-energy yield across various seasons and crops, tracking needs to be customized based on factors including crop type, module array density, economics and social preferences, and policy. Here, we explore customized tracking (CT) along single axis for AV to meet the desired food-energy yield and economic performance for a variety of module configurations and crop types. CT is implemented through a time multiplexing of standard tracking and anti-tracking along the day to balance sunlight between modules and crops, respectively. Module energy and spatial-temporal shading are modeled using the view factor approach while the crop response to shading is modeled empirically. Economic factors including module hardware/soft costs and crop profit are explored to model the economic performance using price-performance ratio. A case study done at Punjab, Pakistan shows that 5 hours of daily standard tracking around noon can ensure 80 % of the typical energy yield targets while maintaining 40 % and 80 % relative biomass yield for crops having high and moderate shade sensitivity, respectively. When module row spacing is increased 2–3 times relative to a typical ground mounted photovoltaic (GMPV) system, biomass yield for crops having high shade sensitivity can be substantially recovered while also improving economic performance. Due to a higher capital cost, 30–40 % increase in feed-in-tariff could be required to make the tracking AV economically competitive to a typical GMPV. The proposed approach can be highly effective for customized module tracking design and economic analysis for AV.

Keywords: Techno-economic model; Agrivoltaics; Feed-in-tariff; Customized tracking; Economics; Energy yield; Food yield (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960148124012199
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:renene:v:235:y:2024:i:c:s0960148124012199

DOI: 10.1016/j.renene.2024.121151

Access Statistics for this article

Renewable Energy is currently edited by Soteris A. Kalogirou and Paul Christodoulides

More articles in Renewable Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().