A Mini-Review of Current Activities and Future Trends in Agrivoltaics

A Mini-Review of Current Activities and Future Trends in Agrivoltaics

Agrivoltaics (Agri-PV, AV)—the joint use of land for the generation of agricultural products and energy—has recently been rapidly gaining popularity, as it can significantly increase income per unit of land area. In a broad sense, AV systems can include converters of solar energy, and also energy fr...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Energies (Basel) Vol. 16; no. 7; p. 3009
Main Authors: Klokov, Alexander, Loktionov, Egor, Loktionov, Yuri, Panchenko, Vladimir, Sharaborova, Elizaveta
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Basel MDPI AG 01-04-2023
Subjects:
Agricultural economics
Agricultural production
Agricultural products
Agriculture
agriculture 4.0
Agrivoltaics
Agrochemicals
Agroecology
Alternative energy sources
Biogas
Carbon footprint
Crops
Digital agriculture
Ecological footprint
Electricity
Fertilizers
Greenhouses
Pesticides
photovoltaics
Power plants
Precision farming
smart grid
Solar energy
Solar energy conversion
Solar panels
Trends
unmanned vehicles
Russia
United States > US
Arctic region
Japan
Germany
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Summary:Agrivoltaics (Agri-PV, AV)—the joint use of land for the generation of agricultural products and energy—has recently been rapidly gaining popularity, as it can significantly increase income per unit of land area. In a broad sense, AV systems can include converters of solar energy, and also energy from any other local renewable source, including bioenergy. Current approaches to AV represent the evolutionary development of agroecology and integrated PV power supply to the grid, and can result in nearly doubled income per unit area. AV could provide a basis for a revolution in large-scale unmanned precision agriculture and smart farming which will be impossible without on-site power supply, reduction of chemical fertiliser and pesticides, and yield processing on site. These approaches could dramatically change the logistics and the added value production chain in agriculture, and so reduce its carbon footprint. Utilisation of decommissioned solar panels in AV could halve the cost of the technology and postpone the need for bulk PV recycling. Unlike the mainstream discourse on the topic, this review feature focuses on the possibilities for AV to become more strongly integrated into agriculture, which could also help in resolution of relevant legal disputes (considered as neither rather than both components).
ISSN:1996-1073
1996-1073
DOI:10.3390/en16073009