Entries by Anna Adair

Compatibility between Crops and Solar Panels: An Overview from Shading Systems

This article examines current literature regarding the application of shading systems alongside crop production, with a focus on photovoltaic panels and greenhouse studies. After reviewing 113 articles, the authors conclude that most studies do justify the co-location of photovoltaic panels and crops. However, more crop-specific research is necessary to determine the optimum percentage of panels that will not reduce agriculture production.

Luminescent Enhancement for Combined Solar and Commercial Agriculture

This project developed a new racking/mounting system combined with a new specialized solar panel for low-cost implementation in a hybrid high tunnel greenhouse. The project successfully demonstrated that high value crops can successfully be combined with solar electricity production, even resulting in improvements to yields for certain crops.

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Decommissioning Solar Energy Systems Resource Guide

When solar projects reach the end of their expected performance period, there are several management options. They include extending the performance period through reuse, refurbishment, or repowering of the facility or fully discontinuing operations and decommissioning the project. In this resource guide, the Center for Rural Affairs briefly expands upon these options as well as potential decommissioning plans, followed by suggestions for county governments once the decision to decommission a project has been made.

ASGA Teatime Replay: Planning Large-Scale Grazing with Jonathan Barter and Troy Bishopp

In August 2022, ASGA Board President Jonathan Barter and “The Grass Whisperer” Troy Bishopp joined us for a lively discussion on how to plan grazing management.  For their follow up, Jonathan and Troy led a discussion focused on planning for larger grazing operations. They invited graziers and ASGA members JR Howard, Josiah Fleury, and Dennis Bauman to discuss their experience with grazing […]

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Current Status of Agrivoltaic Systems and Their Benefits to Energy, Food, Environment, Economy, and Society

The rate of solar power generation is increasing globally at a significant increase in the net electricity demand, leading to competition for agricultural lands and forest invasion. Agrivoltaic systems, which integrate photovoltaic (PV) systems with crop production, are potential solutions to this situation. Currently, there are two types of agrivoltaic systems: 1) systems involving agricultural activities on available land in pre-existing PV facilities, and 2) systems intentionally designed and installed for the co-production of agricultural crops and PV power. Agrivoltaic systems can boost electricity generation efficiency and capacity, as well as the land equivalent ratio. They also generate revenue for farmers and entrepreneurs through the sale of electricity and crops. Therefore, these systems have the potential to sustain energy, food, the environment, the economy, and society. Despite the numerous advantages of both types of agrivoltaic systems, few studies on utilizing the available land area under existing ground-mounted PV systems for agricultural crop production have been conducted. Moreover, with several conventional solar power plant projects currently underway around the world, an expanding trend is anticipated. As a result, this article offers practical advice for agrivoltaic systems on how to implement an agricultural area under ground-mounted PV power systems without agricultural pre-plans. These systems are useful for policymaking and optimizing land use efficiency in terms of energy production, food supply, environmental impact, local economy, and sustainable societies.

Global energy assessment of the potential of photovoltaics for greenhouse farming

Agrivoltaic (APV) systems have emerged as a promising solution to reduce the land-use competition between PV technology and agriculture. Despite its potential, APV is in a learning stage and it is still necessary to devote big efforts to investigate its actual potential and outdoor performance. This work is focused on the analysis of APV systems in agriculture greenhouses at global scale in terms of energy yield. In this study, a novel dual APV model is introduced, projected in four representative locations with a high crop cultivation greenhouse implantation, i.e. El Ejido (Spain), Pachino (Italy), Antalya (Turkey) and Vicente Guerrero (Mexico), and for 15 representative plant cultivars from 5 different important socioeconomic families of crops, i.e. Cucurbitaceae, Fabaceae, Solanacae, Poaceae, Rosaceae. At this stage, semi-transparent c-Si PV technology has been considered due its high efficiency and reliability. The results show that APV systems could have a transparency factor around 68% without significantly affecting the total crop photosynthetic rate. Taking this into account, APV systems would produce an average annual energy around 135 kWh/m2, and values around 200 kWh/m2 under a favorable scenario. This could represent a contribution to the total market share between 2.3% (Mexico) and 6% (Turkey), and up to 100% of the consumption demand of greenhouses equipped with heating and cooling (GSHP), and lighting.

Technoecologies of Solar Commoning: Activating the Immanent Potentials of Solar Infrastructure, Practices and Affect

In the context of accelerated climate crisis this article investigates the energetic-political possibilities of solar energy in the Czech Republic. In the absence of solar cooperatives, the article examines residential PV installations and a ground-mounted solar mono-plantation as a terrain for possible commoning. It proposes technoecologies as a framework and tool to not only focus on what solar infrastructure brings together, but also what is left out or disarticulated in specific arrangements but can be seen as infrastructure’s productive “limits” that entail possibilities for differential inclusion, regeneration, and care. Ethnographic technoecological analysis shows how unexpected plant growth within the plantation points to multispecies refuges transforming the electric monoculture, and how electrical rewiring could connect PV arrays to households in multiple occupancy buildings (paneláky) in ways that enable new forms of sharing and joyful squandering of electricity in times of energy abundance.