Cropland and rooftops: the global undertapped potential for solar photovoltaics

Abstract

The utilization of cropland and rooftops for solar photovoltaics (PV) installation holds significant potential for enhancing global renewable energy capacity with the advantage of dual land-use. This study focuses on estimating the global area suitable for agrivoltaics (PV over crops) and rooftop PV by employing open-access data, existing literature and simple numerical methods in a high spatial resolution of 10 km x 10 km. For agrivoltaics, the suitability is assessed with a systematic literature review on crop-dependent feasibility and profitability, especially for 18 major crops of the world. For rooftop PV, a non-linear curve-fitting method is developed, using the urban land cover to calculate the PV-suitable built-up areas. This method is then verified by comparing the results with open access building footprints. The spatially resolved suitability assessment unveils 4.64 million km2 of global PV-usable cropland corresponding to a geographic potential of about 217 Terawatts (TW) in an optimistic scenario and 0.21 million km2 of rooftop-PV suitable area accounting for about 30.5 TW maximum installable power capacity. The estimated suitable area offers a vast playground for energy system analysts to undertake techno-economic assessments, and for technology modellers and policy makers to promote PV implementation globally with the vision of net-zero emissions in the future.