Design and evaluation of an agrivoltaic system for a pear orchard

Brecht Willockx, Thomas Reher, Cas Lavaert, Bert Herteleer, Bram Van de Poel and Jan Cappelle

Applied Energy, 2024, vol. 353, issue PB, No S0306261923015301

Abstract: Agrivoltaic systems are mostly deployed on arable farm land. An interesting application of agrivoltaics for permanent farming such as pear orchards, is in replacing the protective function of hail nets by semi-transparent PV modules. In this study, a theoretical framework is used to design the optimal agrivoltaic lay-out regarding the levelized cost of electricity, electricity generation and incident irradiance. This incident irradiance is modelled using a 3D light simulation tool, capable of including the light distribution within the canopy walls. Given the practical constraints (orientation, planting distance, maximum wind load, protection function), present in an existing pear orchard, a double-inclined PV structure with a PV module transparency level of 40% was used. This system was constructed in Bierbeek, Belgium. Results of the first year of operation are presented and the models used are validated. It is concluded that this application is promising, with positive effects of the climatological conditions, robust energy generation and a minimum loss of 16% on pear yield. Nevertheless, at this moment, the system is financially unviable and a long-term analysis of the shading effect on crop yield and quality is needed before the large-scale deployment of this technology.

Keywords: Agrivoltaics; Photovoltaics; 3D light simulation tool (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306261923015301
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:appene:v:353:y:2024:i:pb:s0306261923015301

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/405891/bibliographic
http://www.elsevier. ... 405891/bibliographic

DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2023.122166

Access Statistics for this article

Applied Energy is currently edited by J. Yan

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