Researchers and project developers throughout the world are increasingly looking at agrivoltaic installations with vertically oriented solar panels.
Agrivoltaics – the practice of co-locating solar facilities with cropland – is increasingly being adopted throughout the world as a way to introduced distributed clean energy while not compromising land use.
Research by Oregon State University found that solar and agricultural co-location could provide 20% of the total electricity generation in the United States. Wide-scale installation of agrivoltaics could lead to an annual reduction of 330,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions while “minimally” impacting crop yield, the researchers said.
The paper found that an area about the size of Maryland would be needed if agrivoltaics were to meet 20% of U.S. electricity generation. That’s about 13,000 square miles, or 1% of current U.S. farmland. At a global scale, it is estimated that 1% of all farmland could produce the world’s energy needs if converted to solar PV.
There are many different ways to install agrivoltaic arrays. One common method is to raise the array to leave space for farming equipment or livestock to move freely below. Another trending design is to orient the PV arrays vertically, leaving wide open spaces in between the array rows.
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