Environmental Co‐Benefits of Maintaining Native Vegetation With Solar Photovoltaic Infrastructure

Abstract

Solar photovoltaics (PV) is one of the fastest growing renewable technologies that is often preferred for its low emission, scalability, and ease of off-grid deployment in rural areas. In the US, solar technologies are expected to account for as much as 45% of the national electricity supply but occupy a maximum land area equivalent to 0.5% of the contiguous U.S. surface and only 10% of suitable disturbed lands (US Department of Energy Solar Energy Technologies Office, 2021). However, due to the suitability of farmlands for PV development (Adeh et al., 2019), competition for these lands may grow as more farmland is converted to PV development to meet the swelling electricity demand (Grout & Ifft, 2018). Extensive landscape modification by utility-scale PV such as vegetation removal, land grading, refilling topsoil, and compaction for the construction of conventional PV plants may have negative impacts on the ecological functions and may provide challenges for reintroducing native vegetation or crops during or after the 25-30 years lifetime of solar plants (

The Early Effects of an Agrivoltaic System within a Different Crop Cultivation on Soil Quality in Dry–Hot Valley Eco-Fragile Areas

“…The presence of PV panels serves to reduce soil evaporation due to their wind-blocking effect, while vegetation coverage and root absorption contribute to enhanced soil moisture retention through a positive plant-soil moisture feedback process [34,35]. Consequently, a notable improvement in soil moisture was observed in our agrivoltaic system compared to the native land, suggesting a potential mitigation of soil water deficit limitations for crop growth in dry-hot valleys.…”

“…It is important to note that irrespective of microhabitats or crop differences, the soil electrical conductivity (EC) and pH in the agrivoltaic system exhibited an increasing trend compared to native grasslands. Agricultural activities, such as crop cultivation and management, may lead to an increase in soil EC through nutrient leaching [35]. Furthermore, the cumulative effect of crop cover on the evapotranspiration process could also contribute to the variations in EC among different microhabitats resulting from different crops.…”

“…The disturbance caused by power plant construction increased the content of aggregates in the topsoil, which aids in nutrient retention [39]. Additionally, nutrients applied into the soil through tillage, along with crop management measures, may continuously enhance the content of small particles in the soil, thereby improving its nutrient retention capacity [35]. A study on changes in soil characteristics in a degraded grassland PV array found an increase of 17.93% in soil carbon stock and 0.75% in nitrogen stock [22].…”

“…Additionally, PV shading has the effect of increasing winter temperatures and reducing summer temperatures on the underlying surface, while reducing soil evaporation and improving soil water use efficiency [37]. Crop cultivation may also cool the photovoltaic modules and improve the electricity generation efficiency [35]. Planting high-reflectance crops has advantages in increasing the power gain of bifacial photovoltaic modules and obtaining dual ecological and economic benefits [55].…”

Diurnal Asymmetry Effects of Photovoltaic Power Plants on Land Surface Temperature in Gobi Deserts

“…These inconsistent results may stem from the fact that these local-scale studies differ in the time data collected, as well as in the climate and ecosystem types in which the studies took place [26,27]. Furthermore, because of a lack of long-term monitoring data, it is difficult to compare temperatures near PV plants with pre-construction conditions [22,25,28]. Even when model-based large-scale analyses are used, the parameters are mainly derived from individual locations and not universal [9,29,30].…”