The technical and economic potential for crop based agrivoltaics in the United Kingdom

Abstract

Agrivoltaics combines photovoltaic and agricultural systems to create a synergistic arrangement where land can be utilised more efficiently. The investment cost for the photovoltaic system remains higher for an agrivoltaic system than a traditional ground-mounted photovoltaic system due to the increased height above the ground, however, the revenue generated by the system will still return a positive net present value over its lifetime. This paper analyses the performance of overhead-tilted and vertically mounted agrivoltaic systems on a technical and economic basis. The agrivoltaic systems are also compared to systems of the same area modelling a stand-alone crop system, and a ground-mounted PV farm. The resultant energy and crop yield from these simulations are combined to determine the land equivalency ratio of the agrivoltaic systems around the UK. The crop and energy produced are used to generate values for the annual revenue and operating profit of the systems. The net present value compared for the systems over their lifetime, where it was found that Belfast has the lowest NPV with 19499.87 when using vertical APV while Canterbury had the highest NPV at 80713.73 with the panels. The LER obtained had optimistic values, with the lowest LER being 0.91 for the vertical system in Cambridge and the highest LER obtained was 1.52 in Denbigh. The results showed that agrivoltaic systems are viable in numerous locations around the UK, with a land equivalency ratio above 1 in all regions for tilted agrivoltaic systems. More importantly, the results proved that the use of agrivoltaic systems allows land to become more profitable per unit area, with an average increase in annual operating profit of 210% across all locations studied.