Modelling the suitability of agrivoltaics to deliver sustainable energy and food production in East Africa

Abstract

Agrivoltaics address energy, food, and water security concomitantly, yet little research has addressed the opportunities and barriers for this technology in East Africa, a region facing substantial challenges across the water-energy-food nexus. Here, we identify possible use cases for the technology in five East African nations and determine the factors influencing delivery of potential benefits, before assessing the spatial suitability of the technology for two of the emergent use cases: agribusiness and marginal farming. Our findings show there is a moderate to high suitability for AV across both use cases, with a range of biophysical and social factors driving successful outputs; land tenure and solar radiation were the most important for determining suitability. Our analysis indicates where AVs would be best developed to improve access to, and resilience of, energy and food production in East Africa, and our methods could be applied to other locations to support agrivoltaics development internationally.