The 5 Cs of Agrivoltaic Success Factors in the United States: Lessons from the InSPIRE Research Study

Macknick, Jordan; Hartmann, Heidi M.; Barron‐Gafford, Greg A.; Beatty, Brenda Ruth; Burton, Robin; Seok-Choi, Chong; Davis, Matthew; Davis, Robert W.; Figueroa, Jorge; Garrett, Amy; Hain, Lexie; Herbert, Stephen J.; Janski, Jake; Kinzer, Austin; Knapp, Alan K.; Lehan, Michael; Losey, John E.; Marley, Jake; Macdonald, James; McCall, James; Nebert, Lucas; Ravi, Sujith; Schmidt, Jason D.; Staie, Brittany; Walston, Leroy J.

doi:10.2172/1882930

Cited by 15 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 46 publications

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“…Agrivoltaic systems with roughly 50% coverage will reduce crop water consumption by 15%-20% or more depending on the location. Ultimately location, crop selection and array design combine to determine the agrivoltaics optimization landscape (Macknick et al 2022), and these results demonstrate the value of a modeling approach that captures agrivoltaic sensitivity to geography, crops, and array design. This model allows system designers to quantify crop and energy tradeoffs for individual systems.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 84%

“…Agrivoltaics, the practice of co-locating photovoltaic arrays and agricultural production on the same land, is of growing interest as the world transitions to renewable energy (Macknick et al 2022). Historically, more than half of the land used for photovoltaic production is converted from crop production (Kruitwagen et al 2021), and photovoltaics could occupy 10% or more of the land currently used for crops in some regions by 2050 (OECD/IEA 2021, van de Ven et al 2021).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Agrivoltaic system design tools for managing trade-offs between energy production, crop productivity and water consumption

Warmann,

Jenerette,

Barron-Gafford

2024

Environ. Res. Lett.

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Agrivoltaic systems that locate crop production and photovoltaic energy generation on the same land have the potential to aid the transition to renewable energy by reducing the competition between food, habitat, and energy needs for land while reducing irrigation requirements. Experimental efforts to date have not adequately developed an understanding of the interaction among local climate, array design and crop selection sufficient to manage trade-offs in system design. This study simulates the energy production, crop productivity and water consumption impacts of agrivoltaic array design choices in arid and semi-arid environments in the Southwestern region of the United States. Using the Penman-Monteith evapotranspiration model, we predict agrivoltaics can reduce crop water consumption by 30-40% of the array coverage level, depending on local climate. A crop model simulating productivity based on both light level and temperature identifies afternoon shading provided by agrivoltaic arrays as potentially beneficial for shade tolerant plants in hot, dry settings. At the locations considered, several designs and crop combinations exceed land equivalence ratio (LER) values of 2, indicating a doubling of the output per acre for the land resource. These results highlight key design axes for agrivoltaic systems and point to a decision support tool for their development.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 84%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Agrivoltaic system design tools for managing trade-offs between energy production, crop productivity and water consumption

Warmann,

Jenerette,

Barron-Gafford

2024

Environ. Res. Lett.

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“…A likely explanation for the veg PV treatment's potential solar radiation deficit is shading due to tall vegetation: since the PV arrays were mounted 2 m above ground and were 3 m along their east‐west axis, 1‐m‐tall plants may have shaded as much as the bottom 0.3 m of the arrays when they were at a 45°‐tilt in the beginning and at the end of the day. The obstruction from the co‐located vegetation can be avoided by choosing plant species that do not grow tall enough to shade the panels, increasing the height on the mounting system, or mowing, though less preferred (Macknick et al., 2022). Another approach is to open the facility for sheep grazing, which can increase the soil nutrient content and generate extra revenue without modification of the array mounting system (Macknick et al., 2022; Towner et al., 2021).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The obstruction from the co‐located vegetation can be avoided by choosing plant species that do not grow tall enough to shade the panels, increasing the height on the mounting system, or mowing, though less preferred (Macknick et al., 2022). Another approach is to open the facility for sheep grazing, which can increase the soil nutrient content and generate extra revenue without modification of the array mounting system (Macknick et al., 2022; Towner et al., 2021).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Choi

Macknick

et al. 2023

Earth's Future

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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 (

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“…As a relatively new land management practice, there are several information gaps and considerations associated with solar-pollinator habitat that need to be addressed; many of these are summarized in Macknick et al (2022). Vegetation considerations include the feasibility of establishing solarpollinator habitat in different geographic regions, the availability of seed mixes required to result in increased pollinator abundance and diversity, and vegetation management considerations to control weed establishment.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

If you build it, will they come? Insect community responses to habitat establishment at solar energy facilities in Minnesota, USA

Walston,

Hartmann,

Fox

et al. 2023

Environ. Res. Lett.

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Global declines in insect populations have important implications for biodiversity and food security. To offset these declines, habitat restoration and enhancement in agricultural landscapes could mutually safeguard insect populations and their pollination services for crop production. The expansion of utility-scale solar energy development in agricultural landscapes presents an opportunity for the dual use of the land for energy production and biodiversity conservation through the establishment of grasses and forbs planted among and between the photovoltaic solar arrays (‘solar-pollinator habitat’). We conducted a longitudinal field study across 5 years (2018–2022) to understand how insect communities responded to newly established habitat on solar energy facilities in agricultural landscapes by evaluating (1) temporal changes in flowering plant abundance and diversity; (2) temporal changes in insect abundance and diversity; and (3) the pollination services of solar-pollinator habitat by comparing pollinator visitation to agricultural fields near solar-pollinator habitat with other agricultural field locations. We found increases over time for all habitat and biodiversity metrics: floral rank, flowering plant species richness, insect group diversity, native bee abundance, and total insect abundance, with the most noticeable temporal increases in native bee abundance. We also found positive effects of proximity to solar-pollinator habitat on bee visitation to nearby soybean (Glycine max) fields. Bee visitation to soybean flowers adjacent to solar-pollinator habitat were comparable to bee visitation to soybeans adjacent to grassland areas enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Program, and greater than bee visitation to soybean field interior and roadside soybean flowers. Our observations highlight the relatively rapid (<4 year) insect community responses to grassland restoration activities and provide support for solar-pollinator habitat as a feasible conservation practice to safeguard biodiversity and increase food security in agricultural landscapes.

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The 5 Cs of Agrivoltaic Success Factors in the United States: Lessons from the InSPIRE Research Study

Abstract: NREL prints on paper that contains recycled content.

Cited by 15 publications

References 46 publications

Agrivoltaic system design tools for managing trade-offs between energy production, crop productivity and water consumption

Agrivoltaic system design tools for managing trade-offs between energy production, crop productivity and water consumption

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

If you build it, will they come? Insect community responses to habitat establishment at solar energy facilities in Minnesota, USA

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