Toward sustainable practices in photovoltaic and agricultural greenhouse systems: An ecosystem services framework

Aviv Steren, Yehuda Slater, Ofir D. Rubin, Aliza Fleischer and Iddo Kan

Energy Economics, 2025, vol. 144, issue C

Abstract: Policies promoting agrivoltaics face the challenge of balancing between mitigating climate change and farmland preservation. This study applies an ecosystem-services (ESS) approach to evaluate the introduction of transparent solar panels (TSP) as photovoltaic and agricultural greenhouse systems (PVGs) with low impact on agricultural activities. Using a partial equilibrium model of Israel's vegetative agriculture, we simulate the introduction of TSP on farmers' optimal land allocation between open-field and covered crops and its sustainability. The model accounts for food and energy production as provisioning vegetative-agriculture ESS (VAESS), and for greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions and open-field landscape as non-provisioning VAESS. Our findings suggest that TSP represents an economically viable and sustainable PVG technology. The adoption of TSP, alongside policies that internalize the value of non-provisioning ESS, is projected to convert 1.3 % of Israel's cultivable land from open fields to covered crops, contributing approximately 7 % to the nation's electricity supply. The estimated annual increase in VAESS per hectare is valued at $864, comprising $812 from electricity generation, $259 from GHG emission reductions, $277 in consumer surplus from agricultural products, offset by a $441 reduction in agricultural output, and a $43 decrease in landscape value. Our analysis demonstrates how an ecosystem services framework can guide policy decisions toward optimal land-use allocation in agrivoltaic systems.

Keywords: Photovoltaic and agricultural greenhouse systems; Vegetative agricultural land use economics model; Ecosystem services; Sustainable farming practices (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140988325001884
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:eneeco:v:144:y:2025:i:c:s0140988325001884

DOI: 10.1016/j.eneco.2025.108364

Access Statistics for this article

Energy Economics is currently edited by R. S. J. Tol, Beng Ang, Lance Bachmeier, Perry Sadorsky, Ugur Soytas and J. P. Weyant

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