Avoiding conflicts between the sustainable development goals through agro-photovoltaic systems

A common criticism to large-scale solar farm is the competition between land for energy and land for food that creates deep conflicts among the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

One of the sustainable and technological solutions to address the SDGs competition is the adoption of agro-photovoltaic systems, which combine electricity and crop production and increase land use productivity.

By using a water-food-energy-climate nexus approach, this project aims to provide an in depth understanding on the interrelationships between solar radiation distribution at crop level, photovoltaic production, microclimate, and crop yield response underneath of the APV systems.

In particular, the project will investigate through experiments how complex shading conditions created by agro-photovoltaic systems affect the distribution of the albedo and of the photosynthetically active radiation converted into biomass by crops. State-of-the-art algorithm for solar radiation decomposition will be developed.

The project will also investigate through an energy balance approach how the microclimate underneath of agrivoltaic systems affects the electricity production of solar cells and the crop yield by developing an integrated water-food-energy nexus model for agro-photovoltaic system.

The developed model will be sued to analyses on a large scale the effects of implementing agro-photovoltaic systems as a mitigation and adaptation technology to extreme weather phenomena and climate changes.