In this article, researchers in Korea analyze the profitability of agrivoltaics and its implications for rural sustainability. The profitability of agrivoltaics is verified in all studied regions, and the order of profitability and productivity by region are opposite to each other. Researchers suggest that regions with lower productivity may have a higher preference for installing agrivoltaics, implying the installation of agrivoltaics provides a new incentive to continue farming even in regions with low agricultural productivity.
This study presents data for a techno-economic price-performance ratio calculation retrieved from an inter- and transdisciplinary agriphotovoltaic case study in Germany.
By 2035, Egypt pursues to generate 22% of the total electricity from photovoltaic power plants to meet the national spreading demand for electricity. The Egyptian government has implemented feed-in tariffs (FiT) support program to provide the economic incentives to invest in the PV power plants. The present study is carried out to evaluate the techno-economic feasibility of a largescale grid-connected photovoltaic (LS GCPV) of the Benban Solar Park with a total capacity of 1600 MW AC producing annual electricity of 3.8 TWh. The characteristics of PV panels considering the meteorological data of Benban Solar Park are evaluated. Additionally, the reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions due to constructing Benban Solar Park is assessed. As well, the influences of annual operation and maintenance cost and the interest rate on the electricity cost and the payback period are evaluated. The results indicate that the electricity cost is about 8.1ยขUS/kWh with 10.1 years payback period, which is indeed economically feasible with an interest rate of 12%. Furthermore, the Benban Solar Park will avoid annually almost 1.2 million tons of greenhouse gas. The working conditions of the previous study which aimed to improve the performance of solar panels using cooling water are similar to the Benban solar Park. This study showed that utilizing of water cooling for solar panels leads to an increase in the electrical energy output by 8.2%. This attributed to maximizing the benefit when cultivating the vast land area on which the station is built, and using the irrigation water to cool the PV panels, and then for the irrigation process. Thus, a double advantage can be achieved; first, an increase in the electrical energy output by 8.2% in the summer months where the panel surface temperature is high. Second, the agricultural crops as an economic value, as the solar panels are located at a height of 1.5m from the surface of the earth. The PV solar panels are installed above the existing cultivated areas while the maintained spaces among rows of PV modules provide the necessary solar radiation for crops.
Agrivoltaics is a dual land-use approach to collocate solar energy generation with agriculture for preserving the terrestrial ecosystem and enabling food-energy-water synergies. Here, we present a systematic approach to model the economic performance of agrivoltaics relative to standalone ground-mounted PV and explore how the module design configuration can affect the dual food-energy economic performance. A remarkably simple criterion for economic feasibility is quantified that relates the land preservation cost to dual food-energy profit. We explore case studies including both high and low value crops under fixed tilt bifacial modules oriented either along the conventional North/South facings or vertical East/West facings. For each module configuration, the array density is varied to explore an economically feasible design space relative to ground-mounted PV for a range of module to land cost ratio (๐ด๐ณ) โ a location-specific indicator relating the module technology (hardware and installation) costs to the soft (land acquisition, tax, overheads, etc.) costs. To offset a typically higher agrivoltaic module cost needed to preserve the cropland, both East/West and North/South orientated modules favor high value crops, reduced (<60%) module density, and higher ๐ด๐ณ (>๐๐). In contrast, higher module density and an increased feed-in-tariff (๐ญ๐ฐ๐ป) relative to ground-mounted PV are desirable at lower ๐ด๐ณ. The economic trends vary sharply for ๐ด๐ณ< 10 but tend to saturate for ๐ด๐ณ> 20. For low value crops, ~15% additional ๐ญ๐ฐ๐ป can enable economic equivalence to ๐ฎ๐ด๐ท๐ฝ at standard module density. Researchers have presented a techno-economic modeling framework to assess and predict the economic performance of ๐ด๐ systems relative to the standard ground mounted ๐๐. The effects of module design configurations including array density and orientation, income from crop, technology specific and land related costs, and ๐น๐ผ๐ are explored. To support cropland preservation, ๐ด๐ typically has a higher module technology cost as compared to standard ๐๐ primarily due to elevated mounting and customized foundations that can potentially make it economically non-attractive for ๐๐ investors. They show that it is possible to design an economically attractive ๐ด๐ system by selecting suitable crops and module configuration for the given land costs and ๐น๐ผ๐.
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P K Sharma